You are claiming that *generally* engines with lots of cylinders are more reliable than *any* 4 cylinder engine yes?
Which is complete and utter rubbish.
There are countless things that come into play before an engine quite literally wears out from use. From rotation. But, if we are taking that angle, BMW's V8's and V10's seem to be very good at wearing out from use alone, then spinning bearings, and ventilating the side of the engine block. They do this because of sub-standard materials used in the rod bearings.
Manufacturing defects, use of sub standard materials, just two of the many things that will affect an engines lifespan well before the rotating assembly has worn out.
I was also talking about Honda K series engines (I did say Honda specifically) not Rover K series engines which suffer from head gasket issues.
Anyway I thought we had already agreed to disagree?