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on further reflection:
i) the implied weakness on the top of the part could be deliberate on the part of the designers to ensure a heavy knock to the wheel leads to this part failing and not distorting the chassis. This is arguably good design.
ii) most likely scenario is that the car has hit a curb hard leading to a partial (potentially unnoticable) deformation of the arm - but seriously weakening it - this has then failed during high but normal loading over a period of time until it let go. It is likely this knock was hard enough to damage the rim - which may have been replaced - but with the seemingly undamaged suspension left in place. You'd have known if you did this, so assume a previous owner - who may not have admitted it to the dealer. Could have been the previous owners son who did it etc. This could easily have been missed on an AUC check as I've very little faith in them!
iii) whilst shocking, this failure in itself was probably reasonably "fail safe", and again potentially a feature of the design.
EDIT - phil - I agree - and wrote the above before you posted. I do have a history in design engineering - I posted my earlier comments when I was really watchhing Jenson become champ.
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