I especially hope you love the music and images in the closing sequence of this video. Here's our review of the 2017 Carthago C line Chic 5.0 we purchased April 2021 sold November 2021.
We needed a motorhome for year round occupancy and trips of several months at a time.
Our previous Auto Sleeper Nuevo wasn’t really built for such heavy use, didn’t have enough space for lots of sports kit and not enough resources for more than 3 or 4 days parked up in the wild.
Why we did we choose it?
The Carthago has a big garage, lots of additional storage, really good heating and insulation and 160 ltr water storage plus it had been upgraded with 300 amp hours of lithium batteries, additional solar, 1800watt inverter and 2 x Alu gas cylinders.
We enjoyed three really good trips to The Lakes, Scotland, and 2 months away travelling to Spain and back.
It’s a bit of a challenge but so much fun to drive such a big vehicle and although I’m not a fan of automatics this was a pretty clever gearbox with Tiptronic style manual operation possible and a downhill setting for engine braking. The 180 hp engine has plenty of power. Fuel consumption was 24 – 28mpg and averaged at 26.5 over the entire time we had it. It also handles well and was very stable at high speed. The bus type mirrors are nice and tucked in, the 2 rear cameras also came in useful. A roads, big distances and campsites won’t give it any problem.
The general built of the motorhome was super solid. Surprisingly we loved the built in coffee machine which wasn’t as much of a gimmick as we first thought. However, the kitchen tap had to be replaced because of a leak through a crack, the 240v fridge heater element failed and 3 or 4 of the brittle plastic interior cupboard latches snapped and had to be reglued or replaced. Without them doors fly open!
The massive queen size bed gave us really good sleeps and was luxury. We not only had plenty of solar, gas and water – we could also keep lots of fresh food in the lovely big fridge.
The separate shower cubicle was marvellous and the outdoor shower attachment was also really good after swimming etc.
We now plan to go away in another 3 months to go snow boarding in the Alps and then go on to Greece.
However on returning from Spain we decided the Cathargo was just not for us.
We love all the space and independence it gave us
We never did like the rather ostentatious cocktail cabinet, brown interior leather and dark décor and got to like it even less.
The big dining room table and all the big seats meant moving around the living area never flowed, there was very little kitchen worktop space and no grill.
The real deal breaker for us was the ground clearance at the back though. As the garage overhangs the rear wheels so much and everything sits so low, we grounded the back several times, broke the tap on the grey waste pipe off, caught body work on our own drive and the end of the chassis even gouged out tarmac on one narrow lane in Spain. Another time had to turn and go back because a wadi across the untarmacced road meant there was a u shaped dip and it could have caused very expensive damage.
This motorhome just didn’t seem to sort our mountain and beach lifestyle and the thought snow chains and Alpine winter driving is not what this was built for either.
So that’s it in a nutshell. An expensive mistake for us but a privilege to have enjoyed the experience, but just not the right fit for us. Bye bye Cathargo bring on the Hymer MLT580!
