Originally Posted by workingonit

Tell me about it; at my age (73) and having bad knees and back, undercar brake work is now farmed out to a pro shop, after 55+ years of me doing it all on my own.

I just (today) got my wife's '98 GMC back from a shop where I had them replace rear drum brakes (wheel cylinders, shoes, drums), replace broken/rusted bleeders on the front calipers (pads & rotors still 70%), then replace all the old fluid and powerbleed the system. The truck only gets used 2-4 times a year, and I needed pros to get everything unstuck for me (I can no longer crawl under a truck repeatedly to do the brakes by myself anymore) so it was worth a few hundred to get it done for me (they also had to replace a couple of wheel studs, etc.).

The mechanic that handed it back to me said he bled the system three times and wished he could give it a better pedal feel (actually, it feels as it did 20 years ago, so no problem), but it's certainly better than the pedal feel I got after I did much the same procedures on my wife's other car, an '08 Cobalt (it also got a new MC, new front pads and rotors, all done by me). I could not get a totally firm pedal even after using a Motive Products powerbleeder and my NT510 Elite scan tool, multiple times, over three years. I sold the Cobalt last month, and the proceeds paid for the brake work and new tires on the GMC (with some left over $$).

If you don't like the pedal feel, by all means get a second opinion. In my opinion, the Cobalt brakes felt good enough, but my wife didn't agree, and I was just about to put it in the pro shop for a second look at my handiwork, when the wife bought a low-mileage (55k miles) '14 Lexus ES350 from an acquaintance/friend of a friend, and I sold the Cobalt within a week. I certainly took advantage of the extra cash to upgrade her truck, so I wouldn't be second-guessed by the wife (who thinks I'm too old to be crawling around in the driveway, on sand and rocks, at my age). She may be right!