Nuevo ES 2022 Flat Vehicle Battery

Went to my Nuevo yesterday and it wouldn't start - vehicle battery was flat - strange since I'd only been away in it the previous weekend.
Got Britannia Rescue to restart it for me and took it to dealers who put it on charge overnight and have just reported to me that the battery is now 100% functional, and no reason found on the system for the drain.

Their remote monitoring system had showed the battery started losing charge yesterday morning, dropping from 12V down to below 10V in less than an hour, but they have no idea what happened or why.

Dealer recommends I charge the batteries every 1-2 weeks, but my ES is on a storage site with no access to mains. It does have a solar panel.

My (newbie) question is - how often do you guys charge your batteries ?
Do I have to bring it home every two weeks to charge it - by the time I drive from the storage site to home it would have given the batteries a good charge anyway.

This time of year I don't have any issues with battery charging , my solar panel keeps my engine and leisure batterys fully topped up when parked up , 2014 nuevo ek with Sargent 328 controler alarm fitted ,very tired 100 w semi I flexible panel , even in winter my batterys stay charged longer than 2 weeks .just my opinion something not right ,

I had similar incident a few years back.

Pug would not start, dead battery, Green Flag to the rescue discovered on its last service a short time before the battery terminals had not been tightened up at the Pug main dealers.

What a terrible start to your expected enjoyment in your new van ruined by A/S implementation of what they think is a great setup electrically where recent vans are concerned.
Unless you are on EHU pretty much 24/7 at all times then the questions about flat batteries etc.. just keep on coming from new owners.
What annoys me most is that a setup that just works automatically could easily be fitted but then there wouldn’t be the shiny control panel (stuck on with blue tack by all accounts) that the salesman without a clue can drool over to potential new owners!!

Molly3 wrote:This time of year I don't have any issues with battery  charging , my solar  panel  keeps my engine and leisure batterys  fully topped up when parked  up ,  2014 nuevo  ek with Sargent 328 controler  alarm fitted  ,very tired  100 w semi I flexible  panel   ,   even in winter  my batterys  stay charged  longer than 2 weeks .just my opinion  something not right ,

You luckily have a 2014 van, not a 2022!

Dogron, sorry if I sound so negative. There are certainly ways to improve your situation assuming you don’t have an actual fault but I will let the EC700 owners help, I’ve got the earlier EC500 so my info may well be incorrect.

At this time of year your 80W solar panel should be able to keep both batteries fully charged even if the EC700 is not shutdown.  I shutdown my EC700 whenever the van is out of use, including in the summer.  When it is shutdown all your solar charge should go to the vehicle battery so even better.  The leisure battery should be fine without charge for 3 months in storage providing the EC700 is shutdown.  

When your vehicle battery went flat, what state was your leisure battery?

Caraman wrote:When your vehicle battery went flat, what state was your leisure battery?

Was a bit panicky at the time so didn't really check, but I don't think it had much charge - none of the "buttons" on the EC700 control panel would work, so couldn't see either battery's charge state.

Caraman wrote:At this time of year your 80W solar panel should be able to keep both batteries fully charged even if the EC700 is not shutdown.  I shutdown my EC700 whenever the van is out of use, including in the summer.  When it is shutdown all your solar charge should go to the vehicle battery so even better.  The leisure battery should be fine without charge for 3 months in storage providing the EC700 is shutdown.

I was thinking of adopting the strategy you outline i.e. shutdown EC700 when not using van.
I'll also think about buying a battery booster just in case - I was looking at the NOCO Boost Plus GB40 1000A. Anyone use them or have any recommendations?

Dbvwt wrote:
Dogron, sorry if I sound so negative. There are certainly ways to improve your situation assuming you don’t have an actual fault but I will let the EC700 owners help, I’ve got the earlier EC500 so my info may well be incorrect.

Thanks for this and your previous reply. I'm told that Sargent are themselves very helpful, so might be giving them a ring if situation continues.
Meanwhile, if there are any EC700 owners who have a similar problem I'd like to know what their solution is.

It sounds to me you have a fault and the dealer is fobbing you off.

One thing to check might be the solar charge shown on the CP.

Thanks for all the help. Thought I'd give a (belated) update on this topic in case it helps anyone else experiencing the problem.

Having had no luck with the dealer (Marquis - who reportedly checked everything over and couldn't find a fault), I contacted Sargent direct.
A very helpful agent couldn't say definitely what the problem was but walked me through a few checks. What we found was that the 20Amp "Vehicle Battery" fuse in the small EM40 box behind the main EC700 Control Unit had blown (unlike the fuses in the EC700 there are no visual indicators to show the state of the fuses in the EM40).

Anyway I changed the fuse and since then the vehicle battery has maintained its charge. I can only assume that the blown fuse prevented solar charge from reaching the battery.
HTH, Ron

I think this saga has shown that “engineers” at some dealers have no depth of knowledge of the products they work on. When those in question tested and said there was no problem they couldn’t have checked if battery was charging. Would have thought that was an early thing to confirm for flat battery.

Kdc wrote:I think this saga has shown that “engineers” at some dealers have no depth of knowledge of the products they work on. When those in question tested and said there was no problem they couldn’t have checked if battery was charging. Would have thought that was an early thing to confirm for flat battery.

Engineers need a strong academic base - usually MEng - and be a member of a professional engineering institute.  They should either be chartered engineers or above or, as a minimum, be working towards their chartership.  I doubt any employee of Marquis meets this standard.  At best, they are techicians and often not very good ones.

Kdc wrote:I think this saga has shown that “engineers” at some dealers have no depth of knowledge of the products they work on. When those in question tested and said there was no problem they couldn’t have checked if battery was charging. Would have thought that was an early thing to confirm for flat battery.

GreenFlag had used a booster to start the MH, and I'd then driven it about 5 miles to the dealer and reported the problem. The dealer then kept the MH overnight and said they'd put it on mains hookup overnight and the battery was fine in the morning.
I'm not familiar with all the electrics involved in battery charging, but does it make sense that mains could charge the battery but solar was prevented by the blown fuse in the EM70?

It doesn't make sense to me.

Caraman wrote:It doesn't make sense to me.

Me neither. I'm guessing that they didn't investigate the charging function at all (eg. even a simple check to see if the vehicle battery voltage was the same when not charging compared to if on solar, compared to if on mains hook-up.)
When talking to them they seemed only interested in the state of the battery (100%); I couldn't get across to them that I knew the battery was OK and it was the (lack of) charging I was concerned about.

Anyway, didn't have time to take it any further at the time since I needed the MH for a trip away that same day, and I (with help from Sargent) have now found the fault.
But I'm learning more from this forum than by asking questions of the dealer.
Thanks.

I thought sargant recommend a 25 amp amp now after others had a problem

gef wrote:I thought sargant recommend a 25 amp amp now after others had a problem

25 amp is an up grade for campers that now have the lithium battery before the lithium its 20 amp

glyne lock wrote:

gef wrote:I thought sargant recommend a 25 amp amp now after others had a problem

25 amp is an up grade for campers that now have the lithium battery before the lithium its 20 amp

I thought of mentioning the change to a 25A fuse but that is for a lithium battery. OP was having vehicle battery problems and that won't be lithium so 20A is presumably correct.

From this recent thread they seem to be going for 25A fuses for both batteries:

https://www.autosleeper-ownersforum.com/t39872-control-panel-flashing?ns=OAM5e36Kx5%2FNwq3smBBFxA%3D%3D#358353

Dogron wrote:


GreenFlag had used a booster to start the MH, and I'd then driven it about 5 miles to the dealer and reported the problem. The dealer then kept the MH overnight and said they'd put it on mains hookup overnight and the battery was fine in the morning.
I'm not familiar with all the electrics involved in battery charging, but does it make sense that mains could charge the battery but solar was prevented by the blown fuse in the EM70?

So did the dealer put it on mains with there charger or plug your camper into the mains
When changing the fuses from 20amp to 25amp there is a up grade to the ec700 that the dealer needs to do
For safety to the electrics you should NOT be putting a higher grade fuse and this then does not blow but over heats the wiring and burns out.so get the dealer to do the up grade as required that should have been done before the handover

glyne lock wrote:

Dogron wrote:


GreenFlag had used a booster to start the MH, and I'd then driven it about 5 miles to the dealer and reported the problem. The dealer then kept the MH overnight and said they'd put it on mains hookup overnight and the battery was fine in the morning.
I'm not familiar with all the electrics involved in battery charging, but does it make sense that mains could charge the battery but solar was prevented by the blown fuse in the EM70?

So did the dealer put it on mains with there charger or plug your camper into the mains
When changing the fuses from 20amp to 25amp there is a up grade to the ec700 that the dealer needs to do
For safety to the electrics you should NOT be putting a higher grade fuse and this then does not blow but over heats the wiring and burns out.so get the dealer to do the up grade as required that should have been done before the handover

1. I don't know how the dealer tested the battery - I'm guessing they didn't remove it but merely hooked the MH up to mains.
2. Am now very confused. The fuse in the EM40 which had blown originally was indeed 25 Amp and was a different type/make from the other fuses in the EM40. However, since the EM40 box showed it should be a 20 Amp fuse and I don't trust the dealer, I replaced it with a 20Amp.The dealer I got the MH from was not its original dealer so I doubt if they would tell me that they had modified the EC700. Do you know what the modification was - unless there's an easy way to tell if it has been modified (?) then I think I'll leave the 20Amp one and see if it holds.

If you had the 25amp fuse already fitted the up grade should have been done .you would have to go to a dealer to have your camper checked  as to the up grade or ask them if it’s been done
When ever you are having work done at a dealer it’s good to ask to have any up grades done .as the saying goes if you don’t ask you don’t get

I don't know where you are in Suffolk but I have gone to sharman caravans who can do warranty work. If you went to marquis Ipswich its only luck to get someone good

gef wrote:I don't know where you are in Suffolk but I have gone to sharman caravans who can do warranty work. If you went to marquis Ipswich its only luck to get someone good

Thanks for this tip. Sharman's is actually closer to me, so will bear them in mind in future.

glyne lock wrote:If you had the 25amp fuse already fitted the up grade should have been done .you would have to go to a dealer to have your camper checked  as to the up grade or ask them if it’s been done
When ever you are having work done at a dealer it’s good to ask to have any up grades done .as the saying goes if you don’t ask you don’t get

It's just that I don't trust Marquis. I think I'll ring Sargent direct.
BTW. Anyone know what is it that causes more than 20Amps to go through.
Looking elsewhere on the web it looks as though it's a common(ish) occurrence.

Update: have just phoned Sargent - they say the "upgrade" was simply to change the fuse rating from 20 to 25Amp. No other change.

Update2: Have just noticed that the EM40 "Vehicle Battery" fuse has been changed from 20 to 25 Amp, but the in-line fuse next to the Leisure Battery is still a 20 Amp fuse. ???????