eyemgh wrote:I'm not as concerned about getting it home as I am about assessing them from afar. Making a trip to Portland or Seattle presumes I'll find one at the price I'm willing to pay. It would be easier to guarantee that if I could get a handle on ones I want to drive before I went up there. Without Leaf Spy data though, that's not really possible.
If you are insistent on only getting the VERY best SOH for that age of car, that would be a problem. OTOH, if you just wanted to be sure you were getting one that was "good enough," i.e. in the top third of battery health for that vintage, or something like that (compared with all US Leafs), then I would think that if you could verify by Carfax that the car did not sit at a dealer for very long between manufacture and purchase (particularly in summer), and that it had been sold and subsequently serviced in the Portland area, it would be likely to fit that description. Dud batteries are mostly going to be in cars that were abused by parking for many months at 100% and/or used in a hotter region. I guess it's possible that someone in Portland could have charged their car to 100% twice a day and hurt it, but hopefully that's unusual.
So, if you could locate two or three likely cars in Portland, then go look at those, I'd bet the chances of being skunked were low. As long as you have more than one dealer with an acceptable car, you can negotiate with the strength of being willing to walk out.
When I bought my car in May, my goal was to get one that was no worse than average without spending much time searching. I'm not actually sure I achieved that, but I'm happy enough!
