See if you can have a dealer check it out.

Ask the seller if he will let you talk about the car with his dealer or mechanic.

Look in the maintenance book.

When we bought our used '08 XC70 , I found the name of the past owners garage and called him up - he told me that all Volvo services had been performed on the car.

However when my dealer checked the car, they found a bad vacuume pump and the rotors were so rusty that the pads did not touh the rotors properly (a nice way to cite rusty rotors)

The dealer that I was purchasing it from installed new front rotors, turned the rear ones and installed all new pads - they also replaced the vacuum pump. The car also had new tires.

We have owned the car for 4 years, and not had any repairs at all.