Ive noticed that in the mornings my brake pedal isnt so responsive. I feel like i have to push it twice as far to get the proper braking needed. I almost rear ended my dad when i was following him home today, but after about 5mins of driving and braking at red lights the brakes went back to normal and function just fine. I didnt know if it was the fact that the brakes need to warm up or what, but i dont experience that problem when im driving my parents cars from a cold start.. any ideas or is this normal??

 

Saturn brakes rarely act like that unless there is a problem with them. In fact no brakes ever act like that on anything.
Fluid level?
Master Cylinder Problems.
Have you tried Bleeding them?
There could be any number of minor things going on but generally have more than one symptom happening.
Hydraulic fluid can leak causing this and leaving wet spots some where. I worked on a car that did similar but the master cylinder was leaking into the passenger compartment! Weird one and did not figure that one until I discovered the floor was wet in the padding on the drivers side.
So start by checking the fluid. If it is down fill it and look for something leaking while you are bleeding the brakes.

 

I don't know if your car has a check valve on the power brake booster, but if it does, maybe the diaphragm in it is going bad.

 

are you using ceramic pads? May be just my imagination but I was stupid enough to put these on one of my SC2s and they seem to take a few uses to heat up and get fully grippy.

 

ill have to check the fluids again. Before i had my car shipped back the level was fine. The brake pads were changed the week before i bought the car, sooo i have no idea what kind of pads are on there at the moment. The dealer that i bought it from put brand new tires, brake pads and topped off all my fluids. Well, i have a SES light on anyways and i have to take it in so i can pass smog, ill see if i can explain the problem to one of the mechanics there

 

I dunno Derf, I have those on my Chrysler T&C a car that and this is my 3rd one, all three of them drove as if the brakes were too small for the size and weight of the car even with semi-metallics. And they made a huge increase in stopping power to where I am no longer uncomfortable driving it too fast in heavy traffic.
The first 2 were disc/drum and this one is 4 wheel disc. I like them a lot. No brake dust gathering on the wheels. Stopping or slowing down like now when you want it to and or but I will say when loaded to the nines and driven hard on delivery routes I ran for a while instead of going through front brakes every 25,000 miles as the Semi-metallics did the front brake mileage pretty much doubled.
Now they were harder on the rotors. I rarely dealt with machining rotors unless the car pulled to one side or another or the rotors were worn too thin at which point I just replaced them. Forcing me to keep a set of rotors all the way around on the shelf. I would do brakes, change rotors and then have the ones I took off machined if they needed it unless they were too thin at which point I bought a new set and put them on the shelf.
Since I stopped running deliveries I have stopped wearing out rotors too. Running deliveries are hard on a car. But the bottom line I have become a huge fan of Ceramic brake pads for disc brakes and if they ever become available for my Saturn or one of my other cars when I am purchasing them I will buy them in a flash.

 

Dont move the car just get in start it up and pump the pedal.....if the pedal rises after second or third pump you may be want to bleed those brakes.

 

I don't have a pedal pressure issue -- maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist. They seem to have a 3 or 4 stop warm up to get to full grippy stoppiness (that's an automotive term) and they have indeed warped one of my front rotors so now I have to hear that rhythmic ceramic on wavy steel scraping noise yay

 

Aha!! Derf has discovered why I don't use ceramics on my Saturn ...

 

They are harder on rotors than anything I have used before. But the up side is that there is not brake dust on the wheels which has been difficult to clean. I have not experienced any warped rotors. though. And since I have stopped running delivery routs I don't see wear and tear like I did before. The stopping capability more than pays back the extra wear problems