Hi, recently bought a low mileage CVT, one that has stood for 12 years. I replaced belts, but now have excessive wear and serious adjustment again AND have to agin replace belts! Seems like there is a rust and pitting on chrome pulley sides, back and front, that has caused the wear. Is replacement pully's the only option, anyone had experience of this? Fred

Hi Fred,

What did you replace the belts with? New / old / original Volvo / aftermarket ?

Sand all the rusty high spots flat so they don't eat the sides of the belt. It doesn't matter so much about pitting below the surface, but it does matter the jaggy above the surface bits.

Low mileage CVT + stood for 12 years = rusty pulley faces (almost guaranteed).

Sometimes you can find a nice high(er) mileage, regularly used CVT unit with mint pulley faces. The whole unit is about 80kg, but can be dropped in and out in one lump. Replacing pulleys alone sounds too much like hard work to me (plus the balance of the unit will undoubtedly go to pot).

HTH, Rich

Hi Fred,

I had the same desaster on my grey 1990 340DL.
The rust spots are at least 3cm diameter at all pulleys.
After 500km there was a lot of rubber abration and the belt could be driven 1500km at most.
My white 1989 340DL has two small (about 5mm) rust on the outer back pulleys an there are no Probs

My experience is that you only should take intact pulleys without any larger rust. But the hole work to change only the pulleys doesn't renumerate.

cheers Matthias