their last few cars weren't perfect, i had a mk3 mr2 pre facelift and it suffered from piston ring failure, a known issue on the forums, for ages toyota denied all knowledge of this problem, but recently they acknowledge it, kind of
You have surprised me there I had one as well with no issues other than the alloys corroding and 1 rubber seal replacing - loved that car!
was and is a cracking car, it wasn't as common on the post facelifts, think i only heard of 1 case. it was still debateable what caused it. the tech heads on there reckon it was possibly the precats, others think it was original fault in the oil rings.
it wasn't like wild fire, but quite a few cases came up on the forums.