In my case, personal experience. My first car was a Pontiac. It had multiple problems, including the brakes catching on fire once while I was driving. My second car was a Saturn. It was from hell. It had to have a complete engine rebuild before it was 5 years old. I sold it as soon as I paid it off, just short of 5 years old, and at that point it had also had the transmission replaced, was on the second alternator and third battery, second starter, and had a mysterious electrical problem that blew fuses regularly and left it unable to start, but couldn’t be diagnosed. My next car was a Subaru. It had no problems, other than annual maintenance type issues. It lasted 16 years. So I bought another Subaru. Not only do I believe Japanese workmanship is better, they also get better gas mileage.