The joint venture drives you are referring to were built from '94 to '98, the OMC and Volvo products were identical then with the same parts numbers etc. Nothing wrong with any of these. After that Volvo bought out OMC's interest in the joint venture and there were no more OMCs after that, they were all called the Volvo SX. Which was built till the SX-A came out. The one Volvo product you for sure should avoid, is the composite XPD drive. This thing is worse than any other Volvo drive ever built, it caused many buyers nothing but grief. The other Volvo issue is the electric fuel pumps on many fuel injected engines have caused their owners so much trouble and cost them so much money, that some wished they still had an engine with a carb and mechanical fuel pump! Watch out for those issues for sure.....