The purpose of this study was to investigate the cracking mechanism with regard to longitudinal surface cracks in rolled 1538 DH steel bars used for the automotive industry. Although some advances have been achieved concerning the understanding of the cracking mechanism, the problem is not yet totally eliminated and still causing the scraping of a significant percentage of steel products. In the course of this work it was possible to determine some microstructural characteristics of the material which may lead to cracking due to the rolling process. In this sense, it was necessary to carry out an experimental procedure that included crack mapping, optical microscopy, classification of the inclusions, scanning electron microscopy, EDS analysis, X- ray diffraction, tensile testing, hardness and microhardness evaluation as well as thermal cycle simulations. The results seem to suggest that the crack nucleation and crack propagation are related to the presence of interdendritic second phase particles which induce to grain boundary embrittlement during hot rolling.