There's a litany of problems. Some are no ABS (especially scary in the winter), using it for purposes it's not designed for, poor material quality in intricate mechanisms like the doors, poor QC, overweight for the transmission, although that last one is hearsay on my part.
The same arguments about reliability have been made about every advance in technology. Yet there is a reason we don't still go to war in Chariots, wearing bronze armour.
I will utterly disagree with you. Toyota is about to spend an astronomical amount to replace engines in their pickup trucks. Almost every CVT transmission is failing earlier. Every car brand has at least one dud engine in their lineup. Honda, a stalwart of reliability has gone from 1st to 15 in the reliability list. Engines are being built to lightly for the hp that they try to squeeze out of them. Cars are becoming to expensive to fix. Older EV may become uninsurable due to fire risks. I think it's GM that has a engine which has a bolt that when it comes loose, drops into your intake manifold and grenades the engine.
The difference is today’s vehicles can be diagnosed with a monitor and parts swapped out.
Vehicles always had massive recalls, and always had lots of failures. We hear about them more now because instead of Toyota owners getting a letter, and a one day TV news item, it's on the internet and fed to you by an algorithm that determined that people in your demographic like engage with those stories.
Hyundai had massive engine failures and also a paint issue from 2015 (We almost bought one when our Honda got wrecked, thank god we didn't). Price, reliability and features peaked roughly early 2000. The current fuel economy and environmental regs, along with the demand for more horsepower from smaller engines is leading to major failures. Fuel economy regs led to the adoption of 0/30 oils which are bad for your engine long term life, but gives a smallish boost to fuel economy. Extended service times, leads to fuel dilution of lubricating oils and premature transmission failures.
They had massive engine failures in one particular engine, for a few years. Was it a big problem? Yes. Was it the first time a manufacturer had made a dud engine? No.
Agree on the second point. Squeaking numbers out of the their CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) rating has driven all of the manufacturers to go with lighter, more complex engines and CV transmissions.
We had a 2000 Mazda Tribute (first year/first generation, when they were re-badged Escapes). It still had drum brakes on the back. I had the front discs changed around 160K and sold it at about 210K with the original drums brakes still installed.
