I know its a difficult concept to comprehend but most equipment in the world has something wrong with it. Most of the faults do not stop it, do not cause injury or accident. Many cost additional money, many fade once the equipment becomes obsolete.
Not every old tire blows up, not every crappy weld fails and odds are when it does its its overloaded, partially broke, breaks in the driveway and in this case would likely see progressive failure over prolonged time.
Last failure I directly seen with a trailer hitch connection was on the truck. He tells me,,, factory installed legal hitch. I ask when, well 23 yrs ago when he got the truck, been trucking all over the Midwest with this pos and aint looked at it once.
I get a first hand look at a lot of equipment, I go to the fair and I look, look at people there, another one is horse trailers and a broad and I am suspect right away.
They always got a "cant afford it" story.
I had one come in to my drive, in the summer, 1 working brake left a skidmark and she wants me to fab a drop hitch extension to the step bumper to a 78 pickup aint got a working tail light, rusted from one end to the other so she can hook on a 4 place horse trailer.
I tod her I was taking her license number and calling the state police and going on record to say this trucvk was unfit for service and should be condemd before it leaves here and she should be charged with gross negligence is she hooks a trailer to it.
And if they're not...