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i guess its the same with any car..., all the time but the clutch and alternator needed replacing plus some tyres but they don't really count.., lol and a leaky t-bar...very reliable for such an old car...there are good examples out there but there are some bad ones as well so be careful when choosing your car... 
It seems that the peeps on here with all the troubles are Rev1/2 owners. Seriously.(my own personal recommendation), 3S, Skywalker, xxxx...... 
- things hav gone as they would in any car of this age - both calipers have seized in the last 6 months and the front shocks will need replacing asap, otherwise very good. I get around 26mpg on a run, otherwise its a bit closer to 20ish i would have thought, but if you have a lead foot - well, its expensive! Probably a bit better in a totally standard tubby mind. Only thing to watch for is owners who have raised the boost high without uprating other parts. To get up towards 30 you'd have to drive off boost pretty much all the time. These figures are good when you consider the performance. I've only had mine for 5 months but it's been all good and starts on the button. Just needed a new clutch, thermostat and driveshaft seals but they're things I was aware of and it's expected at 80k miles.
find a guddun and reap the rewards(running 300bhp) and it has now done 296 k kms - 186,000 miles.- change wheel bearings, clutch etc as needed. Leaks from the Heater Matrix pipes are perhaps the only weak point.(or very few probs) posting about how reliable the turbo motors are and this will not give an accurate reflection of the reliability.... sadly the cross sectional truth across the whole mr2 community is the reverse,there are always many more mr2 turbo problem threads on every mr2 forums mechanical section than any other type of mr2,thats despite NA mr2's vastly outnumbering turbos too.They simply arent that reliable when you look at the whole mr2 community.Mr2 forums are self polling in a way,you just need to monitor how many turbo v NA threads appear and it gives you a good indication...the majority of problems are from rev1 and rev2 turbos.
Body wise they rarely have rot/rust. Electrics pretty much always work spot on, the engines have a few issues, usually due to being thrashed and not maintained properly. Compare with the Nissan of the day, the S13 - that rots like a tin can. Ford had the XR3i until 1991, that's a rot box too with an engine that would barely do 80,000miles... um... I guess the Mitsubishi 3000gto is pretty good body wise, but the 'tour-de-force- technical package can gliche... Personally I wish i'd stuck with the n/a. ](./images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
(not just MR2's) when they start experiencing problems.PW@Woodsport wrote:unfortunately with threads like this you are always going to get the owners who have never had a problem
Also as a garage we see a lot more turbo problems than NA,but admittedly there seem to be a lot less issues with rev3 turbos.
- I guess any forced induction engine is going to be more complex, and so as a result have more potential for things to go wrong.- If the car has been well maintained and modified by someone who knew what they're doing, it should be reliable. Personally I had 120,000 miles in my turbo without being stranded at the side of the road, and that had been modified to run a reliable 280-300bhp and did many trackdays.- 2 cars out there whose owners have upped the boost to 17psi, left the timing standard and run normal unleaded fuel - and wonder why the car runs so badly 
(alternator x2, HG x1 ) but it is now 23 years old so that's fair enough.