Late 90’s, Early 2000’s was a good time for reliable engineering, but it’s worth looking into owner groups for finding good reliable cars. Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, etc from the time was always likely to be a good choice, but still some are cheap to buy, expensive to own cars, and vice versa with the euro competitors. Many known for unreliability, but Audi, Alfa Romeo, Skoda, fiat, Opel and more, all had a few trusty and well built cars, as long as you can find a good owner history too and do the research