Hi there guys, fist time posting long time reader. Had a problem with my brakes the last few weeks that was intermittant and I finally broke down and replaced the pads. Was a high pitched grinding noise and various speeds from the front passenger side wheel. Seemed to go away when I would touch the brakes while in motion so I assumed it was a worn down brake pad. In any case..

Went to Autozone and got what the rep said was a factory replacement set for the front. No problem geting them off on the passenger side. I removed the whole braking system from the rotor (sorry for non technicial terms yet, im doing this off memory) and replaced the pads. When I was doing the Drivers side though the problem arrose.

They wouldnt fit on without judicous use of a rubber mallet.

We used a C-clamp to push the piston back as far as we could and that pad fit just fine, it was behind the metal by just a bit. It was the other pad that gave me trouble. It seemed like it just wouldnt fit in.. Pic for clarification (not from my project, just shamelessly stolen for clarification)



In any case, we were able to more or less force it on.. but now I have run into 2 problems.

Major Problem -
Brake gets hot enough that you can feel it from behind the plastic wheel cover about 2-3 inches away after 15minutes of driving with hard braking.

More minor problem -
It feels soft to me. I need to go drive another car to make sure but I feel like I almost have to completely push the brake to the floor...which I can do btw. I dont recall EVER being able to do that before.

Ideas on what happened?