Not the problem- they got contaminated. I am so OCD and double check everything step by step, I never would do that, but it is a good thought as I have seen people do things like that before and blamed the car. Go figure.

Tom in Dallas

 

How did the pads get contaminated while bleeding? Did the caliper leak?

 

I'm lost.
I can't see contaminated pads causing spongy pedal unless they swelled up like wet particle-board or something.


I thought you posted previously that the vacuum-bleeder solved your spongy pedal problem. But I may be mistaken.
Then you discovered poor front braking performance and corrected it with new pads?

 

I was doing an old method and brake fluid apparently got on them. Maybe I am 10000% wrong, but when I took the old pads off, which did not have that much wear you could rub your finger on the pad and pull off an oily substance. All I know is that they were making a huge amount of noise and again on every stop like you have wet rotors after a car wash and drive and brake immediately. Something had gone wrong with the molecule structure and the friction application had taken on different characteristics. Bottom line is that caliper bleed system instead of just using the pedal clearly helped and new pads and all bedded in and good stop and no noise.

Tom in Dallas

 

I got the caliper bleed system after the first time of just getting someone to push the pedal and release, but had too much fluid going over the place. Also when putting on calipers one of the fluid line bolts broke and I had more loss of fluid around the brakes. All is good to go now.

Tom in Dallas