Will add a personal story... about failed tie rods!
I once had a nice 84 Toyota FJ60 with ~160K miles which was my daily driver at the time. It was aggressively maintained and I had made several trips between Kansas and Utah w/o incident. I also used as my regular hunting and fishing vehicle in Kansas for ~4 years. In the spring of 2000, I made a ~1200 mile round trip 4 day adventure from Kansas to Minnesota to get some custom work done on a Scamp trailer that I had at the time. No issues and mostly freeway driving. When I returned home, I backed the trailer into the driveway and ran in to see the wife and kids. An hour or so later, I jumped back into the 'cruiser to move the trailer to where we stored it and couldn't get the wheels to respond to the steering when trying to back it up further. I had no clue what was going on! Irritated after a minute of trying to figure out what I was missing, I stepped out and looked under the vehicle... there were both tie rod ends sitting down on the driveway... the threads on the rods/connectors had rusted out!!! So much for my aggressive maintenance! I don't remember how I jerry-rigged to pull it down to the mechanic but that was an ordeal (done late at night!) as well.
My Toyota guy was shocked. He replaced all the tie rod componets, etc. but despite my love for all things "Toyota Landcruiser" at the time, my FJ was sold the next week and I bought a brand new GMC. I loved that 'cruiser but no longer trusted Japanese steel on a 16 year old vehicle. If I were to ever get another one, I would just pony up the $$$ for a full restoration.
As side note, we all have episodes in our lives where it is hard to deny that perhaps we were maybe being looked over by some higher power, ect. This was a personal one for me.
