Not all vehicles state different climate conditions and with regards to 120 000km being low mileage, they don't build em like they use to. Engines are built to last roughly a 100 000km these days because of emission restrictions
In my experience it's always the fancy things they put in the car that starts giving trouble long before the engine, the fancy electronics with multiple modules that are just waiting to break at the slightest provocation, turbos, plastic radiators that starts to leak very early, coolant bottles that are made out of the cheapest plastic available and all that.
I find engines generally to be still good pieces of engineering, they are not built the way they used to be but they are still fairly reliable.
The people driving cars today are also not the same people who used to drive cars before, most are generally not interested in in the wellbeing of their machines and outsource even the most basic, routine maintenance to others who might not even be properly knowledgeable, that's why we see so many new cars having to have engines opened for some reason.