The brake pad warning light came on on our 58 plate Transit the other day. We took it into a garage near my wife’s work as work patterns meant we couldn’t get to our usual place.

They’ve replaced the pads but the warning light is still on which they say is due to “a well known issue with the rear brake light on Transits” and for some reason they can’t / haven’t fixed that. Apparently the bulb blowing triggers the warning light or something like that.

I’ve not spoken to them yet so before I call, has anyone heard of such a fault? I did a bit of googling and didn’t find anything but that’s not to say it doesn’t exist.

I’m not one to prejudge (well, maybe a bit) but the above and a few other issues in how they’ve dealt with this mean I’m getting a definite whiff of BS.

Cheers.

Had an 07 and a 12 plate transit. Definitely both had pads at some point. Never experienced the above problem.

Never heard of that well known issue. The brake lights are in no way related to the pad warning light. On most transits there is a pad sensor osf and osr. If the pad light is on means one of those circuits is open circuit. The most common culprit is the plug where the sensor wire from the pad plugs into the loom doesn’t go fully home. Some times better cutting off plug and hard wiring it

Cheers Wrightyson, we’ve had it for years, had numerous sets of pads and blown brake light bulbs and never had an issue before.

On a firm of maybe 20/30 transits never heard of that issue.

Thanks subduedsupernova, that’s exactly the kind of info I was looking for. They’re basically separate circuits yes?

sounds suspiciously like they have either damaged the wiring OR as my dads 58 plate transit got treated to once – a set of pads without the contacts on – seemingly the contacts were sort of optional and you had to request them on pads for that age of van.

This is why I love STW. Great knowledge. Thanks to all.

Break in the wiring will put the light on, breaks at the rear axle are common, also some plug issues.

Low brake fluid level normally puts this light on as well, normally the sensor is in on the brake reservoir or reservoir cap.

Spoke to the garage, oh my god, what a palaver. I was calm and polite but I thought the guy was going to cry at one point he got so upset. Never got to the bottom of the warning light issue but they have refunded me for the work they did that we told them not to do. I’m actually satisfied that they weren’t trying to hump me and that it’s more a case of them being very busy and a bit disorganised.

Lesson learned, however much hassle it is I’ll just make the effort to go to our regular place.

Thanks for all the responses.

Just in case anyone was interested, turns out the brake pad warning light issue was due to a corroded sensor wire and nowt to do with the brake light.