Hyundai Delta V6 (Mu / Lambda relative)

Hyundai's first V6 of its own — the Delta — in the Sonata, Santa Fe, Tucson, Tiburon and the Kia equivalents.

It is the engine with which Hyundai stopped buying V6s from Mitsubishi, and that transition is the useful context: cars of this era carry either a Mitsubishi 6G7 or a Hyundai Delta, and the badge and the model year do not reliably say which. The code — G6BA, G6BV — does.

Its recurring item is the timing belt, and the engine is interference: a broken belt bends valves. The interval is real and the water pump is driven by the same belt, so replacing one without the other is a false economy that this engine punishes.

The other common complaint is a rough idle from the coil packs and the crank position sensor, both of which produce a misfire that reads as far more serious than it is on a V6.

It is not the Lambda, which replaced it and is a chain-driven design with quite different service requirements — and the two overlap by model year in the Santa Fe.