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The cars require more care/periodic maintenance which the average owner does not do. That does not help the reliability factor. General repairs can tend to cost more than domestic and JDM brands, but that is also where there is a pretty good pool of DIY information for the shade tree mechanics out there. I knew someone who had over 400kmi on their original BMW engine w/o need of any major repair to it as well as others near or over 100k. Conversely, I've known some Jeep owners that had their engines throw rods or their transmissions detonate << 30kmi (42RE trans was crap).
With European cars, you trade ownership and reliability for more frequent maintenance (most of which the casual owner can do themselves) but I do not consider them to be all that much more unreliable than other makes. That said, I still won't buy a first gen engine/chassis/etc but that logic applies to a lot of purchases for obvious reasons.
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