Hi there, if the battery is not fully charged then it will go flat after a while . I know it's a new car etc but you don't know how long the car or battery has been sitting about before you owned the vehicle . Although the car does function ok when running , the battery could still not be fully charged . My advice would be to charge the battery on a trickle charger till full charged then retest . If still no good you will need a new battery.

hi,
some mixed messages there..,

ANY battery will go flat eventually, being connected to any vehicle less than 20 years old will add extra drain..with the alarms, radio codes, etc all draining small amounts,



the latest cars with Stop/start systems use LOTS of power, and have batteries that are VERY fussy, then need PULSE charging ( not- trickle charging),
and if left for long periods the battery will be of no use in a power-hungry vehicle.


Lore has it that if a new FIAT has been a "group-stock" vehicle ,
parked up for 6+ months before sale = regular use,
the battery will last less than 2 years, failing to give proper service well before that.


Charlie

Well, our new (3 month old) 500L Treking has a dead battery too. It has been in the garage and not driven for two days. Why do we have to jump start a brand new car. Nothing electrical was left on. I'm jump starting it tomorrow and will pay our local studio a visit on Monday.

hi and welcome to FF,

be careful "jumpstarting"( electrical spikes) ,
it would be safer to charge the battery with the vehicles leads disconnected,

if you look carefully you can unbolt the power lead from the battery terminal "ring" clamps,:idea:

(regular occurence for TwinAir + Stop/start owners)


Charlie

My new 500L has flat-lined twice now and is currently sitting in the shop again as the tech ponders the reason. The first time was a -35 degree day and the second. -22 degree day. The message " engine heater recommended" is of little help as they are not sold in the US but all the Canadian models have them as standard equipment. The dealership charged the battery the first time and pronounced the vehicle good to go. Hoping there is a solution as I love this car. Owned a 2013 500C Pop last year and had no issues what so ever so am quite disappointed with it's replacement.

500Lizzy said:

My new 500L has flat-lined twice now and is currently sitting in the shop again as the tech ponders the reason. The first time was a -35 degree day and the second. -22 degree day. The message " engine heater recommended" is of little help as they are not sold in the US but all the Canadian models have them as standard equipment. The dealership charged the battery the first time and pronounced the vehicle good to go. Hoping there is a solution as I love this car. Owned a 2013 500C Pop last year and had no issues what so ever so am quite disappointed with it's replacement.

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Hello, and welcome to FF,
thanks for your input

was the battery DEAD at turn of the key,
or just didn't cope well enough to actually START the Engine..,

It MAY be worthwhile changing the battery for a brand new one..,
however it seems there are others with similar issues,

we in the UK have a temperate climate , but central + northern Europe ( scandinavia) should experience similar low temps to you..,

where it of course will be a trade off..
from powering the engine pre-heater / against trying to crank a stone cold " half-frozen" engine..


any idea if the Canadian 500L's have different battery spec.??

do let us know how it goes..


charlie

My fairly new 500L 5 months, has been having the same dead battery problem after sitting a couple of days in this cold, [5-32 degree F] weather in an unheated garage. had to jump it twice. brought it to the dealer for service and they said the battery was low, so they kept it overnight to recharge and test it and could find nothing wrong. this might be very frustrating if it continues. love how the dealership refuses to put in a new battery and denies that it has ever heard of this problem.

The dealership pronounced the battery faulty and replaced it so perhaps this will be the fix. There wasn't enough get up and go in the old one ( only have had the brand new car 5 months) to even light the cabin upon opening the door. Fingers crossed! If not will hound the dealership and a Fiat mercilessly.

They are full of crap...it is pretty common.

Well when the car wouldn't start when it was -10 0utside, and then later that day at 20 it fired right over....this screams BATTERY!!!!!!

I will be calling them. Shortly after purchase, it acted up.
Dealer said they charged the battery cause it sat on the lot for 3 months and had gone dead. IF they don't agree on replacing it, I will go out and yes, buy a GOOD battery and I will also post everywhere so everybody who is thinking about buying one...goes in educated.

Remember my spare tire (lack there of and they didn't have any wheels, spare or full to sell me?) issue? Yep still posted everywhere and I'm not taking them down.

Now the battery is a little different. If you can't start the car, spares aren't a concern

500Lizzy said:

They are full of crap...it is pretty common.

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I thought they were normally full of acid.....

We have had our 2014 500L for 3 months and use it a lot as our tow vehicle behind our motorhome. After about 3-4 days of sitting the battery kept going dead. This is obviously a problem so I thought I would go ahead and upgrade the battery to the Optima. This problem still exists but I can now park the car for 5 days and then I need to get the battery charger out. We noticed this problem prior to having the car wired and the towing brackets installed.

Naturally, the car is wired for the brake lights and running lights which plug into motorhome and this is not the issue. We also have a charging line from the motorhome so that the battery in the car is charged to keep the braking system up to full power when being towed.

From reading the threads here this seems to be a problem. I have not called the dealer but I will be doing so tomorrow as I have the charger on the car now as it was dead again.

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Rwsyclone said:

We have had our 2014 500L for 3 months and use it a lot as our tow vehicle behind our motorhome. After about 3-4 days of sitting the battery kept going dead. This is obviously a problem so I thought I would go ahead and upgrade the battery to the Optima. This problem still exists but I can now park the car for 5 days and then I need to get the battery charger out. We noticed this problem prior to having the car wired and the towing brackets installed.

Naturally, the car is wired for the brake lights and running lights which plug into motorhome and this is not the issue. We also have a charging line from the motorhome so that the battery in the car is charged to keep the braking system up to full power when being towed.

From reading the threads here this seems to be a problem. I have not called the dealer but I will be doing so tomorrow as I have the charger on the car now as it was dead again.

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Please let us know what the dealer says.

I called one dealer and they said they had heard of the problem but it was just loose cables on a car. The other dealer here in town said it has been an ongoing problem and that the factory had sent numerous software changes and not one of them solved the problem. They did say that the factory was working on the problem and that he and the service manager was well aware of the problem. He said to not leave the car at the airport or elsewhere for more than a few days as I was well aware of and to check back in a few weeks to see if there was a fix.

I then called the factory number for Fiat, near Detroit, MI and spoke to an young lady who took all of my information and tried to call the dealer to get their input ( I have never been to the dealer as I know the problem of parasitic loads is there and that the dealer is well aware too) but the the "service adviser" was not able to take the call. She said she would gather the info from the factory Techs and dealer and get back to me. Nothing at this time.

Has anyone else gotten any further than I have?

my brand new 500L went dead after a week too in very cold temperatures, all winter it has been plugged into the garage when -15 or more at night and has been fine since.

I have had this happen a few times now. Once would not start, the others got the battery symbol and it just had enough to turn over... Once moving, it was fine.

I keep hearing that they will just put in another same battery which is crap.
SO I will go out and get my OWN replacement...best that I can find...
I don't like junk parts....and these batteries are JUNK parts.

Hi everyone,

New member here. I just did an online search to see if the battery issue with the 500L was a common one, because this has now happened to me twice.

I'll give all the details, in hopes that it will help someone else who is having the same frustrating problem.

First time was a couple of months ago, when it was cold out, factory battery. They said it was probably just a defective battery, and replaced it. I do not recall the car being left for any significant amount of time (no more than maybe a day or two, max) without having been started and/or driven.

This time, which just happened a couple of days ago, is now early summer, warm out, and the car was left for a week while I was out of town. I did however, notice both times that in the couple of weeks preceding the power failure, that the ignition started to hesitate and falter on startup. Now I know that this is a signal that the battery is going.

The shop just called and told me that they ran a power draw test with another new battery in, and that it tested actually *really* good, so there isn't anything else in the car that's drawing power.

My main concern at this point is that I'm just under a year since purchase, and my ability to invoke the lemon law in my state expires at 1 year. If this is going to be an ongoing problem, I consider it to be a lemon, plain and simple. The repair has to happen 3 times without resolution within one year of purchase before I can invoke the lemon law.

I can't tell you all how disappointing this is. Loved so many things about the car, but this is unacceptable.

Thanks to everyone else for sharing your experiences. It's helpful.

I need to add that the car was NOT unlocked while sitting. It's always locked when it's parked.

Not that this should even BEGIN to be a reasonable excuse for the battery dying like this.

First, I'm glad this forum exists! Second, this has happened to our Fiat 500L twice. We took it to the dealership and they gave us the typical, "we checked everything and it looks good". They even went so far as to say that you can't park for long periods as there is a constant draw from the battery. At this I asked what one is supposed to do if they travel for business and need to park at the airport for extended periods. To which they replied, "either get a battery tender or disconnect the battery from the vehicle". I also had to drive over an hour to recharge the battery. Fast forward to tonight and after 6 days of being locked in my garage the battery is dead again. I am going to start documenting everything and force the dealership to take notice. Either they fix it, give me a new car, or eat it under the Lemon Law. This should be more widely known as it definitely would have swayed my purchase decision! I am going to research if there is something that we can do to collectively document all of these types of issues. This way we have more of a leg to stand on instead of one-off complaints.