There are a lot of examples like this. That timing gear in your linked article is one example. The rear emblem (and trunk key cover) on a 90’s Nissan Altima is another one. They have all fallen off by now. Crappy pot metal?
Either way, it wasn’t intentionally designed to do that. There was no engineer that said, “Hey, let’s juice our parts revenue in 5 years by making this hinge really weak.”
EDIT: Thanks for that article, though. I could see myself getting suckered into a good deal on a Benz. Now I know why the price is so low.
