I went back to the lot and drove the 97 850GLT Wagon today. It was a great ride. Interior was clean and in relatively good shape, with one barely noticible tear in the seam of the pull-down booster seat in the back.
The remote keyless entry didn't work. They said that the battery in the RKE unit was dead and that they would replace the battery and make sure that that was what the problem was. (This is a Mercedes dealership...no Volvo dealership nearby.) We ran a CarFax report, it came back clean. The car was purchased and traded-in to the nearest Volvo dealership and they sold it to the Mercedes dealership here. The problem is that the Volvo dealership refused to release the service records to the Mercedes dealership. So *I* have no way of verifing that it was maintained properly. The guy at the Mercedes place said that they told him that it had been serviced at the dealership during the time it was under warranty (it now has 68300 miles) but that it wasn't serviced there after the warranty was up.
The Mercedes dealership said that they will service the car and change the timing belt for me before I purchased. I am also going to take it to an independent mechanic to have it checked out before I buy.
Advice? Opinions? Sorry this message is so long, but I just don't want to make a mistake!

Jessi
me_227@hotmail.com