Respectfully, my standards for maintenance and reliability are pretty stringent. (When my 94 BMW is serviced at the local dealer - it has 200k - they park it in the corner of the indoor car reception area, with cones around it. My other two vehicles, both trucks, are similarly clean.). But I Understand your point and it has merit. But having taken half a dozen vehicles into the high mileage category (250k plus) when you are past 100k there is no question that you are at greater risk for what I call a stranding failure. It’s just the reality of owning an older vehicle. It doesn’t happen all the time but in my experience it is a real risk. There are a few vehicles, like our Toyota trucks, where I think the risk is lower, but even there all of those vehicles have required repairs over 100k. (A lot of Toyota owners simply ignore worn suspensions and noisy pulleys but they will wear out and fail too.). But a lot of people don’t want to drive a PreRunner, 4Runner or a Corolla.
If you have spent time in Europe you will see many VW taxis and related brands like Skoda with very high kms. But generally speaking my experience is that Europeans, particularly the German, take proactive maintenance more seriously and I do think that European cars are less tolerant of owners ignoring maintenance and needed overhaul and I think that contributes to the perception that they are unreliable because candidly a lot of Americans are clueless when it comes to maintenance. As I said originally, for the first 100k I think you will find that most new cars are pretty reliable today.
Have a good day.
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