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.

I used to own a Renault Megane.

I wasn't really that much of a Renault fan as was mostly into Fords and VW.

In the end I had no regrets owning it as other than the keycard that malfunctioned because it was flung across a room.

The key? Make sure you properly maintain that car and if you're buying 2nd hand make sure you buy one from someone that took good care of it.

A good car but you need to know how to drive it to enjoy it the most.

A good one from the same era would be the Mazda 3 MPS and if you're not looking for outright speed then a Toyota GT86 is an excellent choice as is a Mazda MX-5.

BMWs? I currently drive an E89 Z4, I bought it with a blown engine which meant I had a good discount on it upfront. I bought an engine for it from an E90 and still enjoying it. Thus far other than the convertible top everything about it has been very reliable...... presumably its reliability has more to do that I've made sure it is very well maintained like recently I had it serviced even though in the last 6 months it only did 2,000km.

a very confusing post, TS doesnt seems to know what he wnats..hence, is juz throwing around ideas and notion that his famili (or relatives) owned contis before and is unreliable..but doesnt seems to address what is unreliable...

First: bajet (budget include purchase price, and maintenance price ok)

then we can start talking...

to some of us used car punters (quoting @zenix) , most cars are pretty reliable..esp now so many spare parts around
(of cuz not too old junk like w126 la, c;mon, w126 shud b in museum dy..old and slow)
other than that, most cars are pretty reliable...and for fun cars, u expect to drive it every day? or juz weekends only?..

this would make a difference...cos there's always the E92 m3...not practical cos 2 door...or the audi A8...practical but, how willing are u to budget for the emergencies... or, u can even consider the S500..which is around 40-50k max (cash la), cheaper than vios and pretty reliable...

MCO stress, so yea, no bulshiat...straight talking ...