Front brake pad replacement, BMW vs Valvoline full synthetic

[Jersey General]

Last night I changed the front brake pads. The job was very simple, although I ran into a problem when it came time to bleed the brakes. Since I can only raise one wheel at a time I chose to do the driver side first. I changed the pads, then bled the caliper. I am using a pressuer bleeder, and I had my wife pump the brakes while I captured the old fluid. Before I started on the passenger side I started the car and drove it around the block. The ABS light flashed several times and then went off and has not come back on since. The car stopped fine. After working on the passenger side, and following the same sequence the brakes felt soft. Too much pedal travel, and don't even think about emergency braking. The only thing different between the driver side and passenger side is that I used BMW brake fluid when bleeding the driver side. I used Valvoline full synthetic brake fluid when bleeding the passenger side. I was out of the BMW brake fluid. Still it doesn't make sense that the brakes would feel so soft. Should I just bleed the entire system, or just the front passenger side?

[JonE]

I'd start over, suck out the "old" fluid from the master cylinder reservoir, put in DOT4 fluid of whatever new large bottle you got. Then start again with the rears (don't have to jack up the car, at least I didn't). Sequentially pressure bleed the brakes as usual, but don't drive it between each wheel. See how that works. Good luck.

[SRR2]

Did you push the caliper pistons back before you bled the system? It's possible to push contamination that's collected in the caliper back up the line into the ABS unit. This is not a good thing, as you can probably imagine.

IMO, you should start over with a good supply of new fluid, bleed all around, go for a drive and exercise the ABS, then repeat the bleed.

[632 Regal]

I think you should take the car in and be done with it.

[Rick L]

I use Valvoline synthetic brake fluid on my cars and it works great. I was told that you should always bleed from the far side from the master cylinder first (rear right => rear left => front right => front left) if the master cylinder is located on front left. You could have gotten air in the line... Or the fluid could contain moisture.