Volvo Timing Belt - Continental 271747

If you're working on a non-interference engine such as the 1993 and later (round tooth gears) Volvo B230F and B230FT that this specific belt is for, the timing belts from Continental are just fine, work great, and are very affordable. Even though the service interval on these engines is 50,000 mile, you can usually safely run this belt on a non-interference engine as long as 100,000 miles and I have yet to experience a failure before then. HOWEVER, if you're working on an interference engine such as the B234 (pistons and valves will collide if the timing belt jumps or breaks), I advise you to either change the timing belt early, or avoid Continental belts completely. Timing belts are cheap, engine head rebuilds are not, and Continental did not stand behind their product when a friend's shop (Bob Houskamp, Grand Rapids, MI) had a customer's Volvo B234F 16-valve engine destroy it's exhaust valves in less than 5,000 miles due to a Continental timing belt that lost several teeth. Bob called his way up through Continental's customer service until their national office replied with a statement of "Incorrect t-belt tension, issue closed." The frustrating part of their response is that the B234 engine had an automatic tensioner. Since then, Bob has been using Goodyear timing belts on all the interference engines he services, and I recommend you do the same as well. Again, if you're looking at this specific timing belt, TB234, for your B230 engine, you should be just fine. -and if it breaks or throws a tooth, you won't have any damage to your B230 engine and FCP will send you a new one. Final note: Both the Haynes and Volvo service manuals state that the B230 engine is an interference motor, however IT IS NOT. There are other variants (B234, B204, etc) where the same red block engine was used and those motors are indeed interference in design, but the B230 motors we got here in the United States are non-interference.