This is the 3rd time changing brakes in this 97 stratus...and I have changed them on my other numerous vehicles as well as friends vehicles and have never had this issue. I went out and changed the pads--only removing the old ones, using a C-clamp to drive the piston back in and set the new ones in. Put it all together and I got mush. Pumped the brakes several times and not much better. It is bad enough I am not taking it to work tomorrow...it wouldn't stop on a dime or 10 yard-line. It feels almost as if I got air in the system, but I didn't do anything that would have causes that. Didn't open the valves or anything. Any help would be appreciated! Now something I realized I forgot to do when driving the piston back in, is remove the fluid reservoir cap. That wouldn't have done anything, would it? First time forgetting to do that.

 

So I just got in from replacing my paper-thin (okay, perhaps not quite that thin) rotors and the mushy has gone away. What gives?

 

Because of the bad worn rotors. When ever I do any brake replacement, I always measure the thickness of the rotors. If they are getting close to minimum thickness, I automatically replace them. I also always resurface rotors/drums when replacing pads.