My own personal life experience does not match up with this statement, in the slightest. I have had several cars with engine issues (honda, toyota, datsun) where either the engine or transmission needed to be rebuilt or replaced.There really isn’t much of an analogy on that other than the engine of a car, which rarely dies.
All of these were somewhere between 90k and 150k miles, too. This was when I was younger and could only afford older cars, but I certainly didnt "beat" on them, they got oil changes every 5-7k miles, etc. I Live in Southern California, where you basically need a car to work (in most places) so I needed the cars to run. Each one of those brands stranded me at one time or another, too.