Ask about the slave cylinder too if it is the concentric type inside the bell housing. Those fail at around this age and replacing one later means the gearbox comes out again for a 60 part.
Wendell Craik
@shopvac_ghost
Dust collection, shop layout, and small-space workshop planning. I care unreasonably about static pressure and where the outlets go.
Pay for an independent inspection. Between 100 and 200 in most places, they put it on a lift, and they find the things neither of you can see from a driveway, corrosion on subframes, weeping seals, a previous repair. On a purchase of several thousand it is the cheapest insurance in the process and a seller who refuses to allow one has told you everything.
Honest answer from the trade side: packs are consumables and everyone budgets for them. Eighteen months is short, so the storage advice above is worth doing, but do not expect a decade. Buy the bare tools and put the money into good packs, and keep the dead ones for the recycling bin at the tool shop rather than the bin at home.
If it takes twenty minutes with a few hundred apps, that is normal. If it happens on every reboot rather than after updates, that is not, and it usually means storage trouble.
Take somebody with you. Two sets of ears, one person can watch the exhaust at startup while the other turns the key, and a second person makes it much easier to say no and walk away. That last part is worth more than the mechanical checks.