Mitsubishi 6G72 (6G7 family, 2.0–3.0)

Mitsubishi's 3.0 60° V6, built for thirty-five years and fitted to more cars than almost anything else in this catalogue — Pajero, Galant, Diamante, Delica, Eclipse, the 3000GT, and a long list of Chrysler and Dodge models including the Caravan and the Stealth. SOHC 12-valve at 141 hp, SOHC 24-valve at 195, DOHC at 222, and 320 in the turbocharged 3000GT.

Whether a snapped belt destroys the engine depends on which head it has, and that is the single most useful thing to know about it. The SOHC versions are non-interference: the belt breaks, the car stops, and the valves and pistons never meet. The DOHC versions are interference, and there the same failure is a rebuild. Sources state the family's interference status both ways because they are describing different heads — establish which one is in front of you before quoting a risk to anybody.

All of them run a toothed timing belt, replaced every 60,000 to 100,000 miles, and a belt that has been left is the family's defining risk. Beyond that the recurring faults are shared: hydraulic lash adjusters that tick and fail on pre-1995 engines, valve cover gaskets that seep, carbon sticking the intake runners, and vacuum leaks at the intake manifold.

This page answers for the wider 6G7 V6 family, so the cars listed below run 2.0 to 3.0 litres — the 6G71 among them, and the 6A13 twin-turbo, which is a separate family this page also answers for. The interference question above is decided by the cylinder head rather than by the displacement, and it has to be asked of each engine separately.