I owned a PA28-140 for a couple of hundred hours and it was reliable, once I took care of all the snags the previous owner had neglected. I now own a Beech C23 that is also reliable. Lycoming engines are a large part of that.
The only issue I had with the PA28: it was a bear in cold starts in winter. No preheat basically meant no start. The O-360 in the Beech is marginally better at cold starts but I put in a Tanis engine heater, a must in Canada and have not had problems since.