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I'm not actually old enough to drive anywhere yet, but I do often think about it. For a while now I've been thinking about buying a Volvo Estate like the 850 as my first car as I imagine the insurance would be pretty low and the cars are relatively cheap. Does anyone know how reliable and efficient the Volvo 850 5 cylinder engines are and do any of you have any experience with these cars?

I just bought an 850, but havent't driven it yet (needs new tyres and a windshield and it's at my cousin's carage now, we're gonna do something interesting with it...). But my cousin says they are quite reliable. The insurance for a 2.0l turbo like mine in Finland is 403 euros a year, really cheap. But it takes a lot of gas, 10 liters per 100 km. We're gonna convert mine to use E85 fuel.

wow, that sort of fuel economy is not what I expected from a European family car (though it's a 5 cylinder).

hey !, i have had a 2l NA and a 2.3 turbo 850, the turbo version does 10/100 average, the NA Does 8/100
quite reliable cars, the PPC system has a tendency to clog up, the manual trans are much more reliable.
fun cars to drive and the 2.3 t is quite fast, 0 - 100 around 7 seconds.

If you want a older estate volvo, go for 745 or 945, first: they are rwd, second: more reliable, third: takes alot to kill.
I got a 740 sedan as a "folkracer" and its running on the original oil from the factory after 270000 kilometers and dont even showing a sign on smoke. I have jumped, bashed it, revd it like hell, and driven it in mud and it wont die.
I got a 940 too as a wintercar, good heat package and runs like hell on snow, (studed tires and around 30-40kilo of extra load in the back, it shows that they had rally in mind when they designed this platform.
Yes the milage is crap on both, around 10l/100km, but they are good learning platforms for rwd, before taking on more powerfull and expensive rwd cars.

*twitch*