To me those appear to be more non-sequitur arguments. And I am not from the USA, so your comments are parochially myopic.
> So you're calling Jeep reliable?
Jesus no. I remember an acquaintance taking his 4WD Jeep out mud-plugging: clutch stopped working because the slave cylinder cracked — cylinder cracked because the clutch slave cylinder was poorly made and it was made out of plastic. More importantly, 4WD vehicles that sell to urban purchasers in the USA mean nothing to the context of relying on a 4WD in remote areas. Down under, Toyota is popular in outback Australia, where an unreliable vehicle is a big problem and potentially could kill you. Toyota is also popular for their reliability on farms in New Zealand (even though farms in New Zealand are mostly not so remote that reliability is a safety issue).
> low cost vehicles
Admittedly unclear, but the quotes from the linked article are talking about low cost maintenance; nothing to do purchase price. The article is obviously predominantly urban USA, because that was the only factual source I could find that wasn’t just opinion. Maintenance costs are a proxy measurement for reliability. Often maintenance costs are dominated by hours worked in my experience, so “cheap” parts cannot explain why older Toyota vehicles remain cheaper to maintain.
> So you're calling Jeep reliable?
Jesus no. I remember an acquaintance taking his 4WD Jeep out mud-plugging: clutch stopped working because the slave cylinder cracked — cylinder cracked because the clutch slave cylinder was poorly made and it was made out of plastic. More importantly, 4WD vehicles that sell to urban purchasers in the USA mean nothing to the context of relying on a 4WD in remote areas. Down under, Toyota is popular in outback Australia, where an unreliable vehicle is a big problem and potentially could kill you. Toyota is also popular for their reliability on farms in New Zealand (even though farms in New Zealand are mostly not so remote that reliability is a safety issue).
> low cost vehicles
Admittedly unclear, but the quotes from the linked article are talking about low cost maintenance; nothing to do purchase price. The article is obviously predominantly urban USA, because that was the only factual source I could find that wasn’t just opinion. Maintenance costs are a proxy measurement for reliability. Often maintenance costs are dominated by hours worked in my experience, so “cheap” parts cannot explain why older Toyota vehicles remain cheaper to maintain.