Most people have incorrect definition of reliability.

Reliability by engineers/scientist/mathematician is time-bound, involve confident level, and it is completely different from quality. To declare reliability, one must know the designed life-cycle of a component.

Here's some example
Product A designed to work with designed High Performance (good spec) specification for 5 years, with confident level of 0.02% escape rate
Product B designed to work with designed Slow Performance (low spec) specification for 8 years, with confident level of 0.02% escape rate
Product C designed to work with designed High Performance (good spec) specification for 3 years, with confident level of 0.02% escape rate
Product D designed to work with designed Slow Performance (low spec) specification for 20 years, with confident level of ?? escape rate (real world 30%)

Most people call B more reliable than A, in reality both are good reliability base on designed specification. People complains A is also expensive, but forgot what A enabled, eg:. A is high precision and ultra fast ABS sensor that support advance torque vectoring, while B is low sampling rate slow sensor.

C is an example of lower quality, but still goes through accelerated stress test with a proper confident level from manufacturer, still good reliability.
D is an example of low quality and low reliability. Where manufacturer skim on the testing cost. It could last 20 years, but have to try the luck.

You might ask, what's the different to the user? The component/part last shorter, result still the same. There is big different for the manufacturer.
Reliability is an issue that each factory failed to meet the metrics and actively working for a fix.
Life time issue is not a component issue itself, it is business decision of the car maker to select a even more expensive component that last longer, or continue to replace the component as the component work according to the specification.

Also one do not know if the defect is within the expected escape rate. Reliability is bathtub curve, at the manufacturing the defect rate is high and factory testing filter them out, then defect rate remains low until the designed life cycle, and the defect rate skyrocket again.

Lastly for your question, Porsche from the sport devision GT2/GT2 RS GT3/GT3 RS, GT4 are the most reliable road legal car worldwide (Japanese included) when operate at the vehicle full potential regularly. It is so far the only group of cars in completely stock setup that can be daily driven in rack track, rev to 8000rpm, 9000rpm only with regular maintenance.

Look for Robert Mitchell and Misha Charoudin from Apex. They run a GT2 RS MR as taxi on Nurburgring, doing 30,000KM a year, only regular oil change. Note: they also like the regular taxi, they don't stop the engine between customer wait, reduce start/stop wear.

Unfortunately, those cars are very expensive, but nothing beat them when comes to reliability.

This post has been edited by constant_weight: Jul 9 2021, 12:22 PM

Elantra Sport 1.6T. 4 years car, there was one asking for 75K few months ago, because owner need cash and very sad to let go. 2 years ago, one listed at 90K, don't know the story.
Only 2 used sales that I'm aware of. Most owners are keeping it, lucky if you can find one.

I had one, passed on to my sis. 4 years, only regular maintenance, lube change. DCT was smooth, no gear hunting at all. Annual maintenance about 800-1200, going back to 4S every 6 months

Performance is very close to Mk6 GTi, when both are stock.
GTi has higher peak power, faster at top end, while the Elantra Sport react faster to pace change due to the smaller/lighter turbo that integrated to exhaust manifold, minimize the path, less turbo lag. Of course being GTi, any single drawback has a mod/fix for it.

Elantra Sport has no LSD, and no torque vectoring. You need to manage grip better at corner exist, you will often limited on power you can put down to the ground when the car still have excess power.
More expensive cars with LSD, torque vectoring you can accelerate a lot more harder, and still have no traction problem.

Depends if your fun is satisfaction when you control well yourself or happy to let technology help you to go faster (not to say you don't need skill).

As car enthusiast that spent the first 17 years of my life sitting 99% Toyota (whole family and most relatives are Toyota fans), I don't agree the first part.

1) Toyota also fails like any other cars. Master brake pump, coolant leakage, coolant thermostat failure, alternator failure, power steering fluid failure, air cond compressor leakage etc. Only thing is they are cheap to repair with 3rd party or recond part. If go for original, spend 1.5 to 2x.

2) If we take reliability as the car just changing engine oil, then that will frustrate anyone who love driving. Because the car will drive like shit. I know a few foes (a decade older than me, far younger than my parents), thinks Toyota suspension is very good that never need to change. Their definition of good is simply suspension "DIDN'T RATTLE". For car enthusiast, that's not how we define good. The support is weak, the play is too much, turn in not as direct, we start to replace the parts already.

Totally agree on the second part, we take pride on keeping our car at pristine working condition. Not just hack to make them run.

I insisted on ordering original clips, and not using cable tights and wires, the older foes call me crazy, saying no one will go under the car to see.