Ahh the fox engine.
Where I used to work in ford plant swansea we were making flywheels,cams and con-rods for these back in 2009,but it was chicken feed really,Bridgend got all the big orders,I believe they make it all there now as my old plant is long gone.
I'd imagine if it's a ford motor it'll be alright.
Chips bang on about lifespans of cars,the original design life of a Ka was 10years which having the bombproof 1.3 tap tap motor and basically 40/50year old technology was a little conservative.
Of course the same attention wasn't being paid to the bodywork/rustproofing.
Cars are always lifed to make you buy new again and again.
If you look at a lot of 90's cars,or 80's beemers and mercs they seemed to have got to a level where they pretty much didnt/don't go wrong,not majorly.
I saw a 190merc the other week with 400000 miles on the original running gear,seen cavaliers on 300000 but I doubt there'll be these figures on new corsa's etc,a chap in works had the headgasket done about 5 times on his 2010 Corsa 1.2 16v,utter shite.
The old 1.2 Corsa/novas went on for ever,fiestas even longer (apart from tin worm!!).

I believe the technology is out there to literally build a car that will last forever needing only routine servicing,but it will never happen,it's like the never-ending light bulb.after you've sold them,there's not much point making anymore!!!

I'll say in all my time working for ford their strategy with mechanical particularly was to over engineer everything,why use one bolt when 12 will be better?
They do use the best machinery out there and had some really clever boffins,most of the issues are that they sell so much product that very often things do slip through the net," that'll be ok" was a very common saying,when often it wasn't.

I'd love to see what goes on in a Citroën/alfa Romeo factory,now that must be lax!!!!