The quality of the pulleys (bearings) is what's really important, more so than the strength of the belt. I haven't used anything but Volvo or OEM for timing belt stuff so I can't speak to the quality of the gates belt. The pulleys sold with that kit are INA. In my experience they make good qulity stuff. I'm not sure if they are the OEM or not.

For the water pump yes Aisin is the manufacturer of the Volvo pump. I see no reason to buy the Volvo branded pump.

 

The kit says it comes with OEM tensioners, but as far as the gates belts go, I haven't done the timing belts on either of my V70s but on my Honda, Hyundai, and Chevy they work great and haven't had any issues. But I haven't used their "racing" belts, if there anything like their HD serpentine belts then it should be awesome

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Thanks guys. I suspect the gates one is similar to the kevlar reinforced ones I ran across with DSM cars (3kgt, eclipse, etc). A handful of those guys often claim once and done replacement for life of the car, running higher HP builds, and in my time around that crowd I never heard a complaint about broken/slipped belts.....

FCP lists it as an OEM supplier, which makes me wonder. I always thought Continental made the Volvo OE belt... Suppose its worth a try with their lifetime warranty, if I'm not happy with it I can always change it out and exchange it with them down the line and order the Volvo one for a bit more. And quite frankly it will probably be a once in the life of the car replacement for me, I doubt I'll have the car much longer than 120k miles once I do it this go (plan to upgrade to a 90 by then)

 

Yup. Looks like INA supplies Volvo with the pulley and tensioner. Should be g2g with this kit.

 

Even if the belt "should" last forever, it won't be a one and done because it seems to be the pulleys which wear out and then wipe the belt out.

 

Yeah I work in an auto parts store (I know, were sorry) but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen old tensioners wipe out a belt, new or old.

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Those belts are fine but use VOLVO tensioners.

 

Got it lol. Volvo tensioners....

The next timing belt will most likely be the next owners problem is what I was getting at with the "lifetime" comment. I highly doubt I'll have this car much past 120k miles (puts it at 300k mark). I'll be in an x90 by then hopefully.

 

For me... when it comes to belts and hoses, it's Gates, period! As for high-end racing belts on a Volvo, that's just silly. But no, I am not saying there is anything wrong with you if you want to do that, but just using the standard "Gates Power Grip Belts" timing belt / drive belt, will perform as well as any oe boxed / bagged belt. But always remember this... where you buy a critical part is just as important as the critical part you are wanting to buy. And that's simply because a gates belt maybe bought through a ebay seller or some other shady vendor will not allows be a real gates belt. And that goes for just about any part you buy, which simply means... if you didn't buy it through a manufactures approved distributor you may not be really buying the part you think you are.


As for other other parts, Volvo like any other car manufacturer has everything in there vehicles manufactured by some other company, so you can always find a blue box part made by the OE manufacturer for far less than any blue box pricing. Now as for me, I most times stay with OE parts, but sometimes I use aftermarket parts, and that's not always because of pricing, because most of the time when I do decide to use an aftermarket part it's simply because I know it will last much longer than the OE / OEM or the blue box part. For example... on my 11 xc70, when it was under warranty I had a bunch of trouble with the entire A/C system, 3 condensers, 2 evaporators, and 2 hoses let go in a little over 3 years. So when the warranty went out and condenser failed again, I changed everything over to spectra because I also have an 07 xc70 that has all spectra a/c components with 500,000+ plus miles on them without any troubles, and all my heating components on that car are spectra too. And that's because the Volvo radiator failed @ 150,000 miles and the heater core failed at 172,000 miles. The replacement spectra radiator has a little over 350,000 miles, and heater core has over 300,00 miles and they both work great, only thing I have changed is the heating core orings 3 times, and the transmission cooler orings on the radiator 2 times. So I guess I am saying, sometimes it's important to stay with OE, but then sometimes aftermarket is far superior to even the many reversions that Volvo has made to a certain part.

I will give you one more example, a few years ago I was dealing with front wheel hub troubles... the Volvo blue box, and the OE *** hubs were failing left and right on both sides. I couldn't get more than 30,000 miles before they started making noise and vibrating. Now you might say, there must have been something wrong with some other front suspension or steering component, but there wasn't. Anyway... I had my car into the dealer for a software download evap pump circuit high, due to component age, so when I was there I was telling this older service tech about my troubles, and he said for some reason the new revised Volvo wheel hub assembles for my car are just not made as well as older versions, so he told me to try using "FLENNOR" wheel hub assembles as they have stronger, extremely hard bearing races, 200,000 miles later, those same "FLENNOR(s)" are still on that xc70 of mine, and they are still super smooth... now all my xc70(s), and I have (3) of them, ride "FLENNOR" wheel hub, with no troubles... Note the "FLENNOR(s)" are not made for Volvo(s), Fords only, but they are a direct fit for all my xc70(s)...

 

A lot of the parts are now made in China, take that for what it is, but for the life of me I can't understand why many of you "price shop" critical components when it's well known that some/many of these components should be, MUST BE Volvo parts, or at least the OEM manufacturer of these, (if you know who that may be).

Any decent T belt is fine but you really NEED to use the Volvo tensioners as they are very good good and that is the part that fails, NOT the actual belt.
Same goes with the breather system, also very important, ALWAYS install a complete kit and use Volvo hoses AND you must buy and install the long (EXPENSIVE) big hose. (That's if you don't know the XC90 trick that uses a smaller component mated to the original tube).