Quinranda said:

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.

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I would certainly mention that via. this forum you are aware that this is far from an isolated problem peculiar to your car.

Keep us posted - cheers.

Yeah, I can't believe with all of the complaints Fiat hasn't addressed it by now! Certainly will update this thread if I get any traction.

killerjellybean said:

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.

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have you had further problems..??,
charlie

I've just got back after 8 days in Rome and must say this thread has given me some worries, to the point that I didn't leave my Trekking at the airport but had my daughter drop me off and pick me up... I needn't have worried, after 9 days sitting in a warm (temperature here has been between 32-40C) garage it started instantly.
I must say that I've stopped using the stop-start and did have a 150+ km non stop drive before parking up for 9 days, but am wondering if the problem could be somewhere other than only the battery.... When I had my electrical problem they changed the alternator and the regulator... https://www.fiatforum.com/500l/348334-my-first-gremlin.html

Blue2U said:

I've just got back after 8 days in Rome and must say this thread has given me some worries, to the point that I didn't leave my Trekking at the airport but had my daughter drop me off and pick me up... I needn't have worried, after 9 days sitting in a warm (temperature here has been between 32-40C) garage it started instantly.
I must say that I've stopped using the stop-start and did have a 150+ km non stop drive before parking up for 9 days, but am wondering if the problem could be somewhere other than only the battery.... When I had my electrical problem they changed the alternator and the regulator...

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Hmm, that is interesting. I called the stealership and they suggested bringing it in again. I will mention this to them and see if they will look into it. Next steps are replacing the battery, which I know several others have done to no avail.
I also called their "Customer Care" number (800-242-6342) and spoke to nice woman who took down all of my information and said she would escalate and have a "higher up" call me back. I haven't heard anything as of yet, but will post if I get the call. To be honest, I am not too optimistic that the phone will ring.

Customer care number edit (888) 242-6342.

Quick update: A customer care rep actually did call me back and said that they have assigned a case to this issue. They have contacted my local service center and asked that I bring the car in to replace the battery. Of course I asked if/when this doesn't resolve the issue what the next steps would be. The case manager said that we will cross that bridge when we get there. For now, it seems like they are dealing with it in a timely fashion.

Just as an FYI, I was informed that there is a statement in the owners manual that says if you leaving the vehicle dormant for 21 days or more follow the procedure to prepare it for storage. I wish mine would last 6 days

So the latest update is that I took it into the dealership last week and got the run around. I finally talked to the manager and said that this has happened twice already and the third time is a charm, meaning that he would have to take the car back. After several hours of diagnostics they came back and everything "looked good" under the hood. The manager finally came out and said that he was going to replace the battery at his cost. I guess there are two different batteries out there for the 500L. One is from Serbia and the other is a Mopar (Interstate Battery). The Serbian battery is definitely under powered for this car and all of its electronics. After they replaced the battery I drove home and let it sit for the last 8 days. I jumped in today and it fired right up :slayer::worship: If anything changes I will update, but for now I am all good!!!

Dont know if this has been said already however our Fiat Dealership where we picked up 500L this morning told us that if we are going away & not taking the 500L with us then we should disconnect the stop start off the battery as not only is it another safe guard to it getting nicked it will also stop the battery from being dead upon return, if u need pics of the thing u take off i can provide!

Hello BTW, we (me n Monty) have just picked up our 63 plate 500L Easy MPW 1.3Mjet

Used to be on here when i had my Stilo and now im back.

Si & Monty

platty599 said:

Dont know if this has been said already however our Fiat Dealership where we picked up 500L this morning told us that if we are going away & not taking the 500L with us then we should disconnect the stop start off the battery as not only is it another safe guard to it getting nicked it will also stop the battery from being dead upon return, if u need pics of the thing u take off i can provide!

Hello BTW, we (me n Monty) have just picked up our 63 plate 500L Easy MPW 1.3Mjet

Used to be on here when i had my Stilo and now im back.

Si & Monty

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Pics would be good cheers.....

Noted & will do as such, more likely to be tomorrow.

Have never had any problems with battery.
Car has been parked for 20 days without problems. Start/stop is always on.
Maybe my car has different specs since it was sold new to me in Norway?

2013 TwinAir.

Hi all,

Updates to my previous post from the summer:

First of all, I'd like to say that it is totally unacceptable to have to monkey around with your battery connections in order to not have your car battery die after sitting for only a week. That is not reasonable, nor should it be accepted as such.

Ok, so, after having my car towed back to the dealership for a third time with a dead battery, they determined that it wasn't the battery at all (duh ), but after running diagnostics and communicating extensively with Fiat head office, decided that it was the alternator that was the issue, and they replaced that instead.

So all was well for a while, no issues with starting. It *did* start to have that same gap of a second or so between turning the key and the starter activating, which seemed to always happen a couple of weeks prior to the battery dying, so I was bracing myself for another event.

What happened this time was much more dangerous, however. I drove the car this past weekend 8.5 hrs to visit my family for a holiday weekend. As I was waiting in line at the border, I started smelling some very foul exhaust, which I thought was from the big rig that was in the lane next to me. But as I sat, the smell got worse and worse. Just as it was my turn to pull up, I realized it was actually coming from my car. Needless to say, the border guard ushered me through pretty quick (I was choking him with my smoke, I'm sure) and I pulled over right away as soon as I was through.

The car was shaking and sputtering (as if it was about to stall), and the black, putrid smoke was billowing out from underneath the car, and the hood. I couldn't tell what it was by the smell (the tow truck driver also couldn't identify the smell - he was asking if it was hybrid or diesel, because he couldn't tell what it was). It was almost a burning rubber/electric combo. The temp gauge on the dash wasn't reading hot, and there were no warning lights on. I opened the hood, and a mushroom cloud of smoke came out - I couldn't visually determine the source. I called Fiat roadside assist, and after almost 2 hours of being passed around from office to office, I finally got a tow truck sent out to me (I was now in another country, so there were technical difficulties with that one). Being a holiday weekend, of course nobody was available to look at it until today (Tuesday). So I still don't know what the issue was. I'll be sure to let you all know as soon as I find out. If it has anything to do with the battery or the alternator, I am going to be making sure I get that Lemon Law in effect.

I am SO out-of-love with this car. I officially don't want it anymore - it's been a nightmare. It's so disappointing because I was so excited when I bought it, and of course the whole idea of buying a NEW car is to get something that's going to be reliable, when this car has been anything but. I just thank my lucky stars my 2-year-old wasn't with me on this last trip, or it would have *really* been a nightmare.

If anyone else has had this problem after having the alternator replaced, I'd love to hear about it!

Welp, looks like it's unrelated. It was the clutch. Great, now I have to worry about OTHER things falling apart on my new car?? Love it.

All of the problems are with the joint Chrysler / FIAT modified cars with Chrysler gearbox. The original FIAT European cars don't have any of these issues

Same problem sat for 5 days had jump start it. Dealer is aware of issue looking for guidance from Fiat. Their advice was drive it more. This has happened twice it is my wife's car she doesn't need to drive every day. I turn off everything when parked in the garage but haven't checked the vanity mirrors.

Hi Everyone!

Ok, first of all, it is COMPLETELY unreasonable for the dealership to suggest that you need to monkey around with disconnecting batteries if you're leaving your car for a few bloody days. Sorry, but that is simply unacceptable.

Second, I hate to say it Quinranda, but replacing the battery is only a temporary fix. I've had two batteries and an alternator replaced, and it STILL happened a fourth time, a week and a half ago.

Yep, that's my latest update. And it doesn't seem to follow a regular pattern of how many days it's unused. It may exacerbate things, but the second time this happened to me, I fired it up and drove it the day before, and the next day it was dead as a doornail.

So the car was completely dead again, and so now this falls under the Lemon Law for my state, after 3 unsuccessful repairs in the first year, and now a fourth breakdown. I sent the proper letter with documentation of all my previous issues to Fiat's lawyers, and at that point they had 7 business days from the date of receiving the letter to do their Final Repair Attempt (yes, they get one last kick at the can, if you can believe THAT). It took the first 4 days for them to even contact me about it, then we had it towed to my regular dealership, and they sent out a Specialist or two from Detroit to deal with the problem. My regular mechanics there didn't even look at it, nor were they told what was done to fix the car. So I still have to find out what they did.

Fast-forward to yesterday evening, Day 7, and the car was supposedly ready to be picked up. I go in and get the car, and the minute I start driving out of the parking lot I can tell something is terribly wrong with the transmission. As I pull out onto the road and speed up, it's not down-shifting. The RPM's are just going higher and higher, no shifting. I switch to manual and shift it myself, then switch back after stopping at a stop light, still not shifting. I tried this many times to be sure I wasn't just dreaming, but there it was. I immediately turned around to return the car to the service dept before they closed. Apparently these "Specialists" didn't bother to take the car out for a test drive before declaring it "fixed".

My question now is, since the car technically was not drivable still after the 7 business days, am I in a position to demand the buyback immediately, instead of waiting for this sh!t to happen again?! I guess I'll find out soon. I sure hope so. I really, really wanted to love this car. I was the first person at my dealership to buy one when they first arrived in the US, and I was SO excited about it. It has been nothing but a heartbreak and a disappointment. I have a 2-yr-old, and I can't have something so unreliable - in fact, that was the whole reason for buying new instead of finding something used. This is unacceptable, and at this point all I want is my money back and be rid of it. Sad to say I don't think I'll be buying another Fiat 500L any time soon. :bang:

certainly seems to be a US market issue,

chances are the lack of established FIAT dealer support doesn't help there,

UK dealers aren't great= but at least have accrued a reasonable product knowledge over the years,

Charlie

It appears as if the FIAT 500L that we have here in the States has been contaminated by Chrysler "technology "

The DDCT gearbox is like Russian roulette. It may work OK for you, but then again you may get a big surprise like not shifting out of gear or Park or just randomly downshifting. Then, again, it may just start smoking on you. Brilliant to put a Dodge Dart transmission in these cars, NOT!

Then the uConnect radio is buggy and unreliable

UPDATE!

After having the car in again for that same issue with the battery, and then the issue following immediately with the transmission, Chrysler's lawyers have mercifully finally agreed to offer to buy back the car.

Still have to go through the negotiation process, but thank goodness the :bang: will be overwith.

I'll check back in on occasion to see how the rest of you are faring!

Definitely is a US market issue. I did a lot of research on this car before I chose it, and it seemed to have a pretty solid quality rating in Europe, so I thought I'd be safe.