Chrysler EGA / EGE (3.3 and 3.5 V6)

Chrysler's 3.3 and 3.5 V6s — the EGA and EGE — in the Concorde, Intrepid, Grand Caravan and the Prowler. They sat in the same cars and they are not the same architecture, which is the first thing to establish before touching either.

The 3.3 is an overhead-valve engine with a timing chain. The 3.5 is a single-overhead-cam engine with a timing belt. So a 3.5 that has not had its belt is on borrowed time and a 3.3 is not, the parts share almost nothing, and a workshop procedure written for one is useless for the other. The badge on the car does not tell you which is fitted; the displacement does.

The 3.3 has the better reputation of the two and it is deserved — it is the engine that carried a great many minivans past two hundred thousand miles. Its recurring items are the intake manifold gasket and the crankshaft position sensor.

On the 3.5, the timing belt is the whole question. Beyond it, the head gaskets go on anything that has overheated, and the water pump is driven by the belt — so the two are replaced together, and a pump changed alone means the belt was disturbed and not renewed.

Neither is the 2.7, which sat in the same showroom and has one of the worst reputations of any modern engine. Confusing them is easy and expensive.