Do I need to bed-in the brakes on my daily driver?
 

So I am going to replace the front pads and have the rotors resurfaced on my wifes VUE today and I was wondering about bedding-in. Do I need to do this for a daily driver? I would think yes, but the reason I ask is because I never hear of any shop doing this after a brake job. Maybe I just don't see them doing it. I am looking at the box of brakes for my car and the instructions are as follows.

1> Make 6 to 10 stops from approximately 30-35 mph applying moderate pressure.
2> Make an additional 2 to 3 hard stops from 40 to 45 mph.
3> DO NOT DRAG BRAKES
4> Allow 15 minutes for brake system to cool down.

Is this how you would do it?

That's probably a decent enough procedure to bed them in.

Most shops won't tell you to bed them in because they don't want the liability of a) someone wrecking while trying panic stops or b) someone over-doing it an demolishing the new street pads. Really, on a non-performance car, you're fine just driving carefully for the first 50-100 miles or so knowing that the brakes will be a little weak and just wait for them to bed in on their own. But following the above procedure will hurry that process along.

Is a "hard stop" the equivalent of a "panic stop" i.e. a kid chasing a ball out into the street?

I agree that its not entirely necessary on a daily driver. They will bed themselves in eventually.

I would say a hard stop is slightly less than a panic stop, but not too much less. Also, its probably not necessary to come to a complete stop during the process (and if you do, don't leave your foot on the pedal for too long).

Why resurface? Only turn brakes if they are damaged or "warped". It is better to do just pads or rotors, not both at the same time if you can.

Hard means no lock up, no ABS. Think light just turned yellow and you were going to gun it but the guy in front is stopping.

Do not come all the way to a stop when bedding pads!!! 50-10, 35-5 or something in between and come off the brakes smoothly.

I usually bed in pads, but like Nick said don't come to a complete stop. Once you are done I would drive around a few minutes to give the brakes a chance to cool off before you park the car.

Sorry, I didn't put it in my post but the rotors were kinda bad. I took them to reno clutch and brake and they wouldn't resurface them for me so I had to go buy new ones. I heard from several people that auto store brake rotors are crap so I got a set from summit racing. Bendix brand.

Cheapass rotors are fine, if you know how to drive and don't abuse them. If you don't know how to be nice to your brakes, you're going to spend more money either way- premium parts, or more frequent replacement.

So I bedded them in and everything seems good so far. However, I do have another question. The brake pedal just isnt as solid as I want it or as I think it used to be when we bought the car. The car has 104k miles now and I have never changed the brake fluid. So I called the dealer to ask in what order I bleed the brakes to change the fluid. The guy acted like I was some kind of doofus and replied that they have never changed the fluid on a VUE and that I don't have to. I said, ok well I still want to, what order do I bleed them? He said, "I don't know, we've never done it."

He was of no help so I ask you guys, wouldn't it help if I change the fluid?

If you can't find it on the web, as long as you do all 4 corners it will probably be fine.

Usually you start as far from the master cylinder and work your way closer.

That's the proper order (furthest away first, nearest last), but it can be difficult to know what the true line lengths are due to convoluted routing through the ABS block, etc.

Also, sometimes the ABS block itself has bleeders (for example, the SVX) that need to be dealt with somewhere in the order (in the case of the SVX, you bleed them first). And other cars need a special tool or programmer or something to cycle the ABS pump during brake bleeding if you really need/want to get all the air/old fluid out of the system.

But like Dean said... if you just bleed most the fluid out of the system at all 4 corners in any order, the pedal will probably be much better. It's not a racecar after all.