The seats are made by Lear, a Michigan company, who bought the seating plant, Hella usually makes the lighting, a German company. There is a lot of Bosch parts in Volvos.

I disagree that Mitsu's are all crap. I have seen Galants, even AWD turbo one, with multiple 100,000 miles on them. Remember, that Eclipses do well in SCCA Pro Rally, and also in WRC. Some people just don't keep their cars up, so they end up biting their owners back later. That said, some Mitsu supplied engines for DCX before the merger were not the greatest. There are people who love the turbo 4 cylinders, and that engine has been through a lot of development, up to the WRC Lancer.

It would cost Volvo too much to develop these parts on their own. They basically either look for off the shelf parts or put out requests for quotes to suppliers.