Two different owners for a year each? Check engine light? Questionable airbag deployment? Run, don't walk away.

Carfax should be taken with a BIG grain of salt. My wife was run off the road in her Caravan 4 years ago. Over $5,000 repair that our insurance company covered. ( The other driver was uninsured ) To this day it doesn't show up on Carfax.

850s can be great cars but it's fair to say they're a bit finicky and if you don't enjoy or aren't capable of doing most of your own maintenance they can be VERY expensive to keep alive at shop parts and labor rates. Not that major things fail regularly, but small items that combine to make owners fed up and want to dump them. Seat back cables, dash lights, PNP switches, drooling turbo oil return lines, shifter lockout switch, wheel bearings, strut mounts, door restraining straps breaking, radiator leaks, brakes etc. Most of these things are relatively easy to deal with for the DIY person and parts can be had very reasonably online.

We just decided to keep our '95 850 turbo wagon as we've had it two years, have the complete service history (take the cars VIN to a Volvo dealer and they'll be able to look up any work done at a dealer's service dept.) know the trans was replaced at 56k by the PO under warranty, at 95,000 have no a/c problems or history of and my wife prefers it to the Caravan we'll be selling.

I'd suggest, as a first Volvo, you find a '92-'95 940 turbo wagon. The cast iron engined rear wheel drive Volvos are where the reliability and longevity reputations came from.

Also, don't worry about failing turbochargers. Very rarely occurs if oil change intervals are observed and good oil used. Service records are the Holy Grail.

Good luck,
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Erwin in Memphis, '88 745t 193,000 miles, '95 855t 96,000 miles