The 73 Ford 300 I had was as reliable as the 93 4.0(which had been extremely well maintained), and in many cases still true today, and as in all vehicles, someone will walk away with a lemon and someone else will drive away with a pearl.
I recall an early study into auto manufacturing arriving at the conclusion cars/trucks built on Wednesday & into Thursday were the best bet, not so much Tuesday or Friday, and under no circumstance you wanted one off the line on a Monday
My main deciding factor is based on ease of maintenance, a point in which there is no real comparison in my mind
And no matter how reliable a vehicle may be, maintenance will be coming due, and a very big part of ownership
I also recall a Motor Trend(or some such primary auto magazine) article in the 70s. They two writers to investigate the quality of repair shops and dealerships across the country. Coast to coast and border to border they logged over 400 of them. As they'd be approaching another town they'd unplug a plug wire or a vacuum line or something, and sometimes nothing at all, then stop somewhere to have it checked out.
Of the entire bunch they found only 1 or 2 of the whole bunch who came back with "it was only a loose plug wire/ vacuum line" or whatever. In the by far greatest majority of cases though it was anything from needed a tune-up to some Major repair "needed"
I know there are an army of qualified and honest mechanics out there, but when you're on the road or whatever they can be very hard to find
I'll take one that is easily maintained any day, and even the 96 Explorer I'm driving now is giving me fits on the transmission, and I cannot possibly afford to just go buy a new one :/
I did try a rebuilt one on the Ranger, and got trashed.
I'll take ease of maintenance any day