Soft, ineffective brakes are my #1 gripe about this generation of Explorers. It's the first Ford product that I've ever owned that had what I feel to be sub-par brakes. Other older Fords always tended to be a bit over-braked, and were real touchy.
I've tried darn near everything to improve the feel of my brakes, including going from the original ceramic compound pads to a more performance-oriented carbon metallic, and though it did help some, it's still not as great as I feel it should be. I then went even further into it, bleeding the ABS unit with a scan tool, only to find out there was absolutely no air in the system, and no improvement was made by doing so.
I talked to a friend of mine who runs a large repair/towing facility, and asked him if he ever ran into this on these vehicles, and he told me that's the way they are. He even mis-diagnosed one as having a bad master cylinder because he thought the pedal was too soft, only to find out that a new master cylinder didn't change a thing. He talked to some people "in the know" at Ford about this, and they told him that the way brakes are diagnosed on these is with a simple road test...If the brakes stop the vehicle in a reasonable distance, they're fine, even though the pedal can be pressed harder after coming to a complete stop.
In a nutshell...It's the way they are, and you should just get used to it.
That's not the answer I want to hear either, but it's the only one I've been able to get.
