Spongy brakes on 2007 Accord

[albaker]

My daughter recently moved away, so unfortunately I can’t get eyes on the car. She’s been complaining about squeaky brakes and spongy brakes for a few weeks. I always worked on the car with her, so she knows a fair amount. She took the car onto the Base and rented a stall and did a visual inspection and didn’t see anything wrong. She ended up getting one of the mechanics to look at them, and he also didn’t see anything. 
We replaced the brakes about a year ago with semi metallic pads before she left, which I realize are noisier than ceramics. She moved to the mountains of Colorado, hence my decision to go that route with the pads. That may be the reason for the squeaking. There are minor grooves in the rotors but nothing excessive. 
When she pumps the brakes, they don’t stiffen up and still feels spongy. I’m a bit concerned about this. She’s estimating the brake pedal is about 1.5” above the floor, and feels it used to not be that close.  Does anyone have an idea? Thanks

[Jeff Papineau]

I think this comes from not replacing rotors same time as pads?

Rotors can really be thin and weak, need to be replaced same time; it really will help with all kinds of possible potential issues when attempting to keep using existing rotors; new pads have to conform to any problems (warping as they become thinner, grooves); the factory rotors were crap! Buy some great ones!

I thought same but it was entirely different once I simply replaced the rotors, and they were maybe $200 plus installation. Excellent investment.

That said; you may have ruined your existing new pads by using them with old factory rotors, AND you can completely rethink now if you want to use ceramic or metallic pads with your new rotors.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Jeff Papineau

[albaker]

Thanks, Jeff.