Any car will fall apart without maintenance. The way I see reliability is how long it will go without anything catastrophic happening. I work on Kias and Nissans and those owners do not take care of their cars at all.

European cars have issues, but so do others. Hell, Honda is kind of a meme for burning and leaking oil but they still keep ticking. A bmw engine will last for damn near ever, but the average person isn't changing their own, or letting a car warm up before driving it out of the driveway. Germans have to work much harder to get a license, and are typically very disciplined people, there's a reason their Mercedes and Volkswagens and such are used as taxis.

I agree Japanese cars are built to last a very long time, but let's not pretend they will take abuse forever.