Anecdotally I dispute this. I used to drive a 2001 make Kia Rio (Korean car) I had many aggravating and expensive problems with it (power steering, Clutch and finally gearbox) It had a moderate amount of KM's on it but not excessive. For first 7 years I had no problem but after that every six months something seemed to go wrong with it.

I now have a Toyota Yarris it is about to reach 4 year old mark so far no problems.

2001 is fourteen years ago and Hyundai/Kia have been making dramatic strides in design and quality since then.

Reputations going back 15 - 30 years have little bearing on what's on the lot new today, this is especially true for GM and Hyundai/Kia.

So, four years in, the reliability of your Toyota is exactly the same as it was with the Kia? No problem?

Japan used to outsource a lot of production to Korea or do co-manufacturing.

Quality varies depending on the product.