ORIGINAL: PaintballFreak

So I decided to replace my front rotors and front and rear brake pads myself, rather than pay a shop to do it. I'd never done this before so I pulled up a few online how-tos and went after it. I got the rotors and pads all on and bled the old fluid out of the cylinder through the brakes but I never let the cylinder get empty. It got about half empty then I started putting new fluid in it and kept bleeding till the fluid wasn't black anymore and until I got no air bubbles out of any of them. So the brake fluid is full and the rotors are all slightly loose (rock maybe a millimeter but I figured this would be taken care of when I put the wheels on which I haven't yet) and the calipers are all very snug on the rotors with the new pads. I thought this would be normal as well with brand new brake pads. It takes a significant amount of force to move the rotors but they do spin. I even put the car in gear while on jackstands to make sure they would spin. My problem is I have absolutely no brake pressure with the pedal. The pedal is really really light to push, way lighter than it was before. From what I can tell, the brakes do not react to pressure on the brake pedal. Could tell no difference in the time it took the rotors to stop spinning with or without putting pressure on the break pedal while the car was on jackstands. So what gives? What on earth did I do wrong? As I said I bled all the brakes and they all had constant fluid coming out with no air bubbles when I finished. My dad was working the pedal during this and during the first one we bled he mentioned the pedal losing all it's firmness but the fluid was still flowing. The brake fluid cylinder is still full and everything. I have no idea what I did.

Things I could think of - wrong type of brake fluid? I think I used Valvoline Synthetic or something. I just thought of that right now so maybe I need to go check the manual. That would be a ****ing dumbass thing to have done wrong if that ends up being the problem..

Maybe the fact that the calipers are all pretty tight on the rotors has something to do with the brakes not wanting to work but I didn't really think that as I can still turn the rotors by hand it just takes a lot of force. I assume if the brakes were working properly and engaged I WOULD NOT be able to turn the rotors so that shouldn't have aynthing to do with it.

I'm really at a loss and my next move is to have it towed to a shop in shame in the morning unless you guys know exactly what the problem is and exactly how to fix it. What a frustrating day.. thanks for the help..

JD