Well to a certain point I agree. I guess if you have good quality control on the manufactured part in the first place and it was used within conditions and serviced properly then it should be 'reliable' for the design life - but the design life has probably way expired by then. A long time ago when I used to work in the industry it was 7 years minimum design life requirements from the OEM (not sure about LR and this wasn't for 4x4 vehicle parts) and the actual design life from the supplier was 10 years. All of the testing was done for 10 years lifespan.
My wife was driving but to be fair to her I felt the vibration and thought that it was a change in road surface conditions as we had just been though a town. You live you learn...

