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.