This is the conversation that decides whether the most expensive component in the car gets checked. It is worth thinking about for two minutes before you have it.

Ask early, not at the end

Raise it in your first or second message, before either of you is invested. Something like:

"If I'm seriously interested, would you be okay with me arranging a battery health check? It's done at your place, takes a few minutes, nothing gets driven or changed on the car, and I pay for it."

Asked at that point it is a normal question from a careful buyer. Asked after a test drive and a haggle, it sounds like you are looking for a reason to knock the price down — and sellers react accordingly.

Lead with what it does not involve

Most resistance comes from a seller imagining something that is not happening. In their head you want to take the car away, or have it on a hoist, or have someone pull a panel off.

So say the three things that remove all of that, in this order:

  1. It happens where the car is. Nobody drives it anywhere.

  2. It's read-only. Nothing is written to the car, nothing dismantled, no settings changed.

  3. It takes minutes, and I'm paying.

Make it easy to say yes

  • Offer to fit around them. "Whenever suits — I can do a weekend or an evening."

  • Offer to be there, or not to be. Some sellers would rather not have a stranger standing in their driveway.

  • Offer them the result. If the battery is healthy, they get a dated certificate they can show the next buyer. That is worth something to them, and it reframes the whole thing as a favour rather than an inspection.

  • Don't make it conditional-sounding. "If the battery's fine I'm ready to go ahead" is better than "I'd need to check the battery first."

If they say no

A refusal is information, and it is worth reading properly rather than assuming the worst.

Reasonable reasons: they have other buyers and are not waiting; they have been messed about before; they simply do not want strangers at their house. None of these mean the battery is bad.

Less reasonable: "the battery's fine, it shows 400 km on a full charge." That figure is a prediction from recent driving, not a measurement of capacity, and a seller offering it as proof either does not know that or is hoping you do not.

The one that should end it: an outright refusal of a short, read-only, buyer-funded check on a car they are describing as perfect. You are not owed an explanation, but you are allowed to draw a conclusion.

At a dealership

Dealers refuse more often than private sellers, usually citing policy. Two things help.

Ask whether they will provide a battery health report instead — a dealer confident in their stock often will, and one who will not has answered your question anyway.

And ask before you are in the finance office. Once you are deep in a deal the leverage has moved.

If you cannot get access at all

Walk, or price the uncertainty in. On a used EV the battery is most of the value, and buying one unmeasured is buying the single biggest variable blind. That is a legitimate choice — plenty of people make it — but make it deliberately and pay accordingly, rather than assuming a number on a dashboard has told you anything.

What actually happens at the appointment · Book a test — $249

Verified 13 September 2026.