a mechanic that is worth anything has a reputation
for instance I do a lot of polaris stuff, many Rangers
it would be easy to say that all I see every day, 5 days a week, is broken rangers and that would be truthful. However lets look at the real story here. I might see 5 or 6 a day. out of those, 2 or 3 are oil changes, 1 might need a belt or clutch. The other one may need a bushing or to fix a rat chewed wire. So it's not all gloom and doom, but because I see them daily I could aways say "they spend a lot of time in the shop". The other side of this is that the dealer sold 400 and some Rangers last year, and 500+ the year before, so if 10% of them show up at the shop, that's 40-50 of them. OMG they should NOT be in the shop, certainly not that many. But they do, and it pays my bills for which I am thankful for. Kubota paid my bills for a LONG time the same way. I saw orange stuff daily 6 sometimes 7 days a week for 29 1/2 years so it'd be easy to say that they spend a lot of time in the shop too.
On the 3.5's I know some owners who have 240-250,000 miles on them without major issues. And I know guys who have had issues at 20,000. And I know at least one owner who don't know how to maintain anything, his has 64,000 on it-and probably on the original oil and filter and air filter. Maintenance is not in his vocabulary, never has been. He's looking for a new truck as we speak. No problem that I know of, but that is one truck that I would NOT want to buy!
turbo engines do need slightly different maintanence but most people won't do it any differently. Also when you start the engine let it warm up a little, and when you get to your destination, let it idle a while before you cut it off. This helps. Minimum 1 minute with no load on it. Most won't do it, and I catch myself "forgetting" too.
but just because it's turbocharged doesn't in itself make it less reliable! If that were the case every single big truck out there and almost every diesel engine out there would be considered unreliable too and that is not the case. THe greatest challenge with the gas turbo engines is fuel system and air intake. Run good fuel (and quit depending on the knock sensor by using 87 gas), keep the air filter clean, and keep the engine oil clean, it'll last a LONG time. But everyone wants to run 10,000 mi oil changes and nobody checks air filters anymore so what do you expect? Same things I see on Polaris, lack of proper maintenance. It kills them but nothing I can say or do changes anyone's mind when they're stubborn.
