Mk 7 front brakepad connections

[ferroviaphile]

Good Evening, All. (Best to be polite with a first post!!)
I'm a delivery driver for a Printer in Nottinghamshire, driving an 07 plate Mk 7 110/300 diesel LX with about 109,000 miles behind it.
In July the supplying Ford dealer serviced it, and fitted new front discs and pads, and rear pads. A few weeks later the brake pad warning light on the panel came on. Nothing wrong with the brakes, and I carried on until I had enough time to check. On the nearside everything was as it should be. On the off-side, the wiring on the pad side of the connector had been cut and taped up with insulation tape. Presumably water has got in or the wires are touching, putting on the warning light.
The van is going in for inspection tomorrow, Monday 26th. But the garage now say that....wait for it......Ford supply some pad sets with connectors on 1 pad only, and cutting off wires/insulating them is an approved method of dealing with this.

My view is this is the biggest load of garbage I've ever heard from a franchised garage to cover their poor workmanship (I believe the technician must have damaged the connections while fitting the pad). In any case there must be information in the workshop manual or a TSB to cover such a modification.
But I just wondered if anyone else had had problems with the wiring to the front pads.

Thanks in advance.

[Guy88]

even aftermarket pads come with new sensors and wires

but

as stated theres only 1 sensor and its on the N/S, the O/s has a jumper loom in the plug, if the wires arent linked then the light comes on

[stevegriff]

some of the early Mk 7's had pad warning on all 4 wheels when new, New pads only come with a sensor on one side.
You can get a jumper loom to blank off the now unused side.

[ferroviaphile]

Thanks for the replies....time to eat some humble pie, but also to despair at the penny-pinching attitude of the Ford Motor Co.
From what I've been told today, about 2 years ago Ford changed the pad "design" to incorporate electrical connections on 1 front pad only, which is normally fitted to the nearside caliper. The wires that led to the off-side pad are connected together to fool the van into thinking a pad is connected.....the opposite idea to the "old" way of connecting brake pad sensors, where the eventual wearing of the pad made contact with the disc to complete the circuit. There was no TSB issued for this change.
So, if there is now a problem with wear on the off-side front pad there is no warning until metal meets metal. I was also told that on the latest versions the loom for the pad wear sensors is on the nearside only. Perhaps I'm too cautious by nature, but I feel that removing monitoring from half of the system is a retrograde step. But as the customer will end up paying if things go wrong.............
The Dealership were actually far better at dealing with this than they are for normal servicing....they did say they'd had several calls from other garages they'd supplied with parts questioning what was happening.
They found the fault that was putting the warning light on...a broken wire in the loom on the back axle. At 4 years old.
So, many thanks again for the replies....my knowledge has been extended again.

[taz666]

can i just add that being a ford tech myself the action of cutting and insulating the wires is NOT the correct way of modification to the o/s of the vehicle, ever since the pads only come with 1 wire ford brought out a pad wire dummy which is a connector with a looped piece of wire in it, ford have determined that the n/s pads wear out quicker and thats why the deletion of the o/s wiring