Meh, German cars are good as long as you're within the warranty/lease period. Out of warranty, I wouldn't touch any modern German car. Japanese brands tend to be more reliable.
Yeah, fair enough, same with washing machines and fridges. Toyota are good, old Land Rovers from about 1998 to early 2000s were built to last - now, not so much. The good thing is we can see which modern cars weren't built to last and not buy them :)
German cars aren't what they used to be. I know because my wife owns a Made in Germany Volkswagen that breaks a lot more often than my other car, a US-made Hyundai.
I'm interested in the US-made car market. I don't know much but something on my todo list to learn. I've heard good things about the US making good cars
Tldr we taught the Japanese how to make quality cars back in the day, they took those lessons and refined them further and further.
Meanwhile the US car companies got stuck with Harvard Business School MBAs doing value engineering and badge engineering that nearly sank the US car companies in the 70s and 80s vs the Japanese competition in terms of reliability and TCO.
So the US can make a few good cars for things like commercial adjacent vehicles, but mostly we play catch up to Japan IMHO.