I replaced the front and rear brake pads on our 2003 Cooper. I bought the red pagid pads from Bavarian Auto Sports. Bled the brake system and now the brake pedal feels soft and travels about half the distance to the floor. They perform well but just don't feel good.
I would appreciate your suggestions.
Thanks

 

did you bed them in? you need to get some heat through them to get everything setup right.. checkout the stoptech site for a good article on it.. get up to 60 and then slam on the brakes till about 10.. repeat.. you will smell the brakes cooking.. this will also get brake material to transfer to the rotors and then they will grab better..

have fun cooking

 

Hopefully the resiviour stayed full when you bleed it...if so, it sounds like the pads just need to be bedded....hopefully with such an aggressive pad you can get it hot enough/keep it hot enough to get the pads up to normal opperateing temp....

 

Agreed, bed in the pads. If you did not replace the rotors they my be out of spec. Undersized rear rotors will cause a soft pedal. Is your e-brake working correctly?

 

Thanks to all for the info. The rotors are well above the minimum and the e-brake works well. I have not bedded the pads, I'll try doing this in the morning.

 

New pads....old rotors...in for a long and difficult bed...
Hopefully you cleaned them throughly and scuffed them up...most likely they should have been cut....often you will glaze s set of pads trying to bed them to used rotors..the high spots make heat...no contact on the low spots....get crap for braking.
good luck.