I just found this really odd... spent yesterday impersonating a professional mechanic as my friend owns a shop and his best tech was on vacation, and Saturday is when they (obviously) do most of their business, and he didn't want to have to turn away customers for lack of a competent tech.
Aside from discovering that I'm not cut out to work on cars all day every day (I knew this, this is not news - I work on cars because I like driving nice cars, not because I enjoy the work itself) one of the jobs I was set to doing was front brakes on a Grand Marquis - which is a car that I actually really like. It's an old man's car, but a really nice, competent one. Ford screwed up and made a decent car for once (and then discontinued it, but I digress.) If I found an old detective's Vicky (with the HD suspension, charging, and cooling options) that wasn't thrashed to shit, I might be tempted to pick it up.
So this GM shows up, I get it racked and give it a quick once-over, and it appears to be very well maintained and in overall good shape with only a few issues. The owner brought it in for new front brakes and it needed both pads and rotors as one of the pads had gone full metal to metal. Here's the annoying thing - there were no "squeaker" tabs on either the old pads (which is why she didn't bring it in while the rotors could still be saved) or on the new ones (Centric Premium Ceramic IIRC), but there were no brake pad wear sensors either. WHY...? Doesn't seem to be Centric's issue as the same exact brand/model pads for another vehicle that I also changed yesterday. Seems like a dumb decision on Ford's part not to specify a squeaker tab on the brake pads, would only add a few cents to the cost but would give owners/drivers a little warning that it was time to change the pads. I find it doubly confusing as this chassis seems to be a favorite of fleets (police, taxi, etc.)
nate