I've had a 1997 Camry and it's still running like a champ. The only thing that was wrong was a leaky oil sensor. $100 later (at the dealer) it was fixed.
However, I'm not sure of the reliability of the newer Toyota/Honda vehicles. Cases in point:
A friend of mine had a 2001 Acura EL. He stated numerous times that after about 60k it just started falling apart on him (don't have any details). Another person I know bought a brand new fully loaded 2002 Honda Accord. His tranny blew not once, but twice. The car now has about 80K on it and he is seriously thinking about getting rid of it. Another friend tracks his car regularly and told me a story of a 2001 Integra Type R's engine blowing up on the track. The car was completely stock (Yeah, I know, tracking the car is bad for the engine, but keep in mind that the Type R was basically built for this). My dad's one year old RX330 had the brakes (rotors/pads) replaced at 15k (he is not an agressive driver), the one of the adaptive headlights does not work anymore and the dash board has an extremely annoying rattle.
I've read somewhere that during the last couple of years, Japanese manufacturers have seen their sales skyrocket, however because the demand grew so quickly and productions numbers were higher than before, they just do not have the time to make the each vehicle as reliable as they were before.
