We analyse the experimental limits on the breaking scale of Pati-Salam extensions of the Standard Model. These arise from the experimental limits on rare-meson decay processes mediated at tree-level by the vector leptoquark in the model. This leptoquark ordinarily couples to to both left- and right-handed SM fermions and therefore the meson decays do not experience a helicity suppression. We find that the current limits vary from $mathcal{O}(80-2500)$ TeV depending on the choice of matrix structure appearing in the relevant three-generational charged-current interactions. We extensively analyse scenarios where additional fermionic degrees of freedom are introduced, transforming as complete Pati-Salam multiplets. These can lower the scales of Pati-Salam breaking through mass-mixing within the charged-lepton and down-quark sectors, leading to a helicity suppression of the meson decay widths which constrain Pati-Salam breaking. We find four multiplets with varying degrees of viability for this purpose: an $SU(2)_{L/R}$ bidoublet, a pair of $SU(4)$ decuplets and either a $SU(2)_L$ or $SU(2)_R$ triplet all of which contain heavy exot
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