Spring clip for rear brake pads has snapped and disconnected during operation of vehicle twice. This problem has occurred with 17,000 and 19,000 miles on the vehicle. Dealership has been unable to effectively remedy the problem. Please provide any additional information / documentation.

- Philadelphia, PA, USA

I rotate tires every 6000 mi. During rotation I inspect brake pads for wear. At 18000 mi I found excessive wear on rear pads, to the point that they needed to be replaced fairly soon. I took the car to the dealer for replacement under warranty. They advised that thos wear was "normal" and was not covered under warranty. That's nonsense. I've never had a car that needed rear pad replacement at lesss than 50000 mi. No professionls I spoke with thought this was "normal" wear. This is made worse by the fact that, when the car was new, I had brought it in for correction of brake vibration. The dealer machined the rotors and the tech said he "didn't like the looks of the rear pads so he replaced them." That's at 1500 mi. Which means the replacment set only lasted 16500 mi. The owner service guide only says to inspect front and rear brakes at 30000 mi. If I had waited to 30000 mi I would have had at least rotor failure and might have had brake seizure, causing accident/injury. Dealer contacted Ford Motor Co rep who said it was normal wear and would not be covered under warranty. I personally replaced rear pads with after-market life-of-the-car-warranty premium-grade pads because I won't pay Ford for another set of fast-wearing pads. I kept the original pads for NHTSA inspection, if desired.

- Trenton, NC, USA