did brake job but now brakes not working well

help!
2005 Town and Country - changed pads all around and had front rotors cut and bought new ones for the rear. All seemed to go together well enough but the braking power is now severely diminished. I can hardly get the ABS to kick in on my gravel driveway! On dry pavement if I stomp the pedal the car takes a long time to get to a complete stop. As the car slows down I can hear the pads against the rotor. Not a grinding but a low level friction noise i never heard before. I have done the front brakes in this car before with no trouble. I did not bleed them brakes cause I wasn't sure of any special procedure with ABS but I didn't need to do that before. I have plenty of fluid but the pedal does seem a little spongy but not that bad.
Any ideas? i am hesitant to allow my wfe and kids to drive the car.
Thanks,
Steve

 

You can bleed ABS brakes just the way you bleed non ABS. It does sound like they need to be bleed.

Who turned the rotors? Did they take a measurement to make sure they could do it in the first place?


Bleed them:

Back right

Back left

Front right

Front Left

 

actually alot of chyrysler minivans have another step in bleeding the brakes with abs it requires a scanner to activate the abs solenoids in order to bleed them correctly.
would look over your work might even try different brand of pads if you didnt have the system open there shouldnt be any air or any need to bleed brakes just from changing the pads.

 

The car is only 2 years old and 80 + percent of the work is done by the front.

Did you rotate the pistons in the back? Most rear calipers are tied to the parking brake and the pistons are more complicated.

If you never opened the system you should not need to bleed.

 

i had a local auto parts store turn the rotors which were new from the prior brake job but still in real good shape.

The parking brake is separate from the rear disc brakes. There is a small drum brake setup for the parking brake. I did not rotate the pistons in. i gently pushed them in with a c clamp. i did not believe they needed to be rotated because of the separate parking brake setup.

 

Does not sound good
It is good that you dont drive it.
Retrace your steps and take it apart and find the problem
They should work.
I dont tell very many people this but I once put the shoes in backward.
That was steel on steel. Not very good brakeing.
Brakes are almost fool proof. But not quite

 

retraced everything and found nothing out of the ordinary. i took it to a local gas station for a professional opinion. they say everything is fine, it is just because of the metallic pads are taking a while to break in. i have never experienced that to this extent but I felt comfortable enough to drive the car myself. I'll take it easy for a while and re-evaluate then. thks for the advice.
Steve

 

These mechanics are right, the pads should be bedded in BUT you should be able to stop the vehicle on a dime either way.

I'm going to ask a stupid question because I did this once when I was real young. When you were installing the pads, did you happen to apply the grease that they give you with them, onto the face of the pad? This would cause your pads to slip on the rotor.

 

It may be that the rotors do not have the correct micro-finish on them. If they were in good shape you probably should not have had them machined. Many people think you have to refinish rotors to do a proper brake job, that is not correct. If you have thickness variation causing a pulsation or if they are severely grooved it would be proper to refinish them. You did nothing to make me think you need to bleed the brakes.

 

i didn't apply the antisqueak cause they did not include it! I know enough to put it on the backside.
I also wondered about the finish but the mechanic thought it looked ok. I still have a set of rotors from a previous brake job in decent condition. If it still does not improve after a week or 2 maybe I should put the old ones back on to see what happens