  Pair production of new vector-like quarks in pp collisions is considered
model independent as it is usually dominated by QCD production. We discuss the
interpretation of vector-like quark searches in the case that QCD is not the
only relevant production mechanism for the new quarks. In particular we
consider the effect of a new massive color octet vector boson with sizeable
decay branching ratio into the new quarks. We pay special attention to the
sensitivity of the Large Hadron Collider experiments, both in run-1 and early
run-2, to differences in the kinematical distributions from the different
production mechanisms. We have found that even though there can be significant
differences in some kinematical distributions at the parton level, the
differences are washed out at the reconstruction level. Thus, the published
experimental results can be reinterpreted in models with heavy gluons by simply
rescaling the production cross section.
