The rear bathroom is an excellent size and makes for a great showering and changing room especially with the rear wardrobe over the garage. Shower tray is quite flexible and made out of soft PU so flexes quite a bit. Its not high quality but adequate I hope! The van is made down to a price and this is reflected in some aspects of the interior. Its not Hymer / Carthago / Frankia quality but then its a lot cheaper so you get what you pay for.
The garage is large enough for 2 or more bikes but as standard has no restraints to fix down any payload so these would have to be added. Their is also a rear access apart from a door at each side. (LHS door is largest the RHS door is higher up and smaller, the rear door aperture obscures any potential bike rack ! so if you do fix a bike rack it would have to go high up and have a mechanism to lower it. But as the garage is large bikes could go in there I guess. The garage also has 12v DC and 230v AC and blown heating vent plus a LED light strip.
The Benimar 483 auto was top on my list until I looked at one in detail at Marquis. Let me explain why it no longer suits our needs and with others off the list. The story starts where I discover a used 483 auto for £50995 with 600 miles on the clock and 2 months old. We thought we had found a great deal and went to see the MH in person. Upon speaking to the salesman we discovered the reason its up for sale is that the previous owner of 8 weeks found the lounge/bed layout did not suit them both and after one trip sold it back for an end bed layout. So what is it about the 483's lounge that stopped us also proceeding with the sale. The main problem that concerned us as a 2 person couple was that we wanted to use the electric drop down bed at a low level so as to not have to use a ladder and allow easy access to the large bathroom in the night.. perfect we thought. But no, the same problems eventually dawned on us that concerned the previous buyer which for us is around three scenarios. 1) Your partner goes to bed early or wakes late and you have nowhere to sit after making a coffee unless you climb over them back into bed. This is a real concern and now affects all our MH selections with a bed that removes the lounge and all seating. 2) My next observation seems to affect quite a few MH I have looked at and concerns the drivers seat positioning. The drivers seat in the Benimar range does not rotate enough to allow the driver to be seated in 180deg reverse position allowing you to relax facing rearward with feet up on the side cushions. It allows only partial rotation and ends up angled inwards under the table pointing at the hab door. The passenger captain chair however is perfect allowing for a relaxed position with foot rest on the side cushions or in fact any direction you choose. The driver chair gets stuck on the steering wheel and the side seating. The resolution would have been for Benimar to reduce the length of the adjacent seating or have a small cutout near to the drivers seat to allow full rotation. This is an amateur designers mistake I mean how the heck could this be overlooked not being able to rotate the drivers seat 180 in either direction. 3) Our next concern is around the comfort of the L shaped lounge seating now that the drivers seat is compromised. The L shape lounge seats are really short in depth and the cushions are so soft they collapse under my 12 stone weight making them really un-comfy. Resulting in us preferring the captains seats and then experiencing issue (2) So in conclusion yes this van has a large lounge but its seatings not comfortable and the bed once made removes all your seating. So this was a near miss for us spending almost £50K on a van that in practice we would end up not liking. So its back to the drawing board for us where were now looking for an option with a fixed bed and permanent front seating that is practical and comfortable. What is it with MH designers I mean the few issues I have discovered must be obvious to others. The drivers seat could be fixed by a slight redesign of the adjacent seating, and the short collapsing side seating could be just better quality, however the issue around the loss of all seating once the bed is made is a show stopper and was for the previous owner and us too. So we are looking for a design that has a permanent lounge and one that has quality seats. I hope this gives you food for thought especially around the practicallity of living with a particular design. I mean the loss of all seating also affects the Frankia 640 and even end kitchen MH's and was something previously we had overlooked in our rose coloured view of motorhomes. I agree with many reviewers that there is no MH that will ever be 100% but there must be something close we have just not found that combination yet in the size and price we want to pay. Which for a 1st MH is under 7m length and < £60K
I too found the seating soft, but not particularly costly to take to an uholsterer who can redo the cushions with firmer foam , using the existing outers. I agree though about the non 180 degree drivers seat - our F560 AT has the same issue. we have no problems with the bed though, we both get up at the same time.
You made two comments on the soft cushions and seat rotations that I was completely unaware of--I appreciate you sharing. I've been considering the Chausson 650, which has similar layout length (a tad shorter at 6.4m)--you might check that one out--it might have better cushion firmness and the seats might do a full 180.
The garage is large enough for 2 or more bikes but as standard has no restraints to fix down any payload so these would have to be added. Their is also a rear access apart from a door at each side. (LHS door is largest the RHS door is higher up and smaller, the rear door aperture obscures any potential bike rack ! so if you do fix a bike rack it would have to go high up and have a mechanism to lower it. But as the garage is large bikes could go in there I guess. The garage also has 12v DC and 230v AC and blown heating vent plus a LED light strip.
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The rear bathroom is an excellent size and makes for a great showering and changing room especially with the rear wardrobe over the garage. Shower tray is quite flexible and made out of soft PU so flexes quite a bit. Its not high quality but adequate I hope!
The van is made down to a price and this is reflected in some aspects of the interior. Its not Hymer / Carthago / Frankia quality but then its a lot cheaper so you get what you pay for.
These types of reviews, four wheels, steering, wheel, lights, table, cooker. Are not really reviews. Still, better than nothing.
Very basic review. What's the total weight is it 3500kg and what's the payload? Starting price, other layout options etc.
Thanks for the review, would have liked to have seen the garage. Benimar seem to have some really nice motorhomes.
The garage is large enough for 2 or more bikes but as standard has no restraints to fix down any payload so these would have to be added.
Their is also a rear access apart from a door at each side. (LHS door is largest the RHS door is higher up and smaller, the rear door aperture obscures any potential bike rack ! so if you do fix a bike rack it would have to go high up and have a mechanism to lower it. But as the garage is large bikes could go in there I guess. The garage also has 12v DC and 230v AC and blown heating vent plus a LED light strip.
The Benimar 483 auto was top on my list until I looked at one in detail at Marquis. Let me explain why it no longer suits our needs and with others off the list.
The story starts where I discover a used 483 auto for £50995 with 600 miles on the clock and 2 months old. We thought we had found a great deal and went to see the MH in person. Upon speaking to the salesman we discovered the reason its up for sale is that the previous owner of 8 weeks found the lounge/bed layout did not suit them both and after one trip sold it back for an end bed layout.
So what is it about the 483's lounge that stopped us also proceeding with the sale.
The main problem that concerned us as a 2 person couple was that we wanted to use the electric drop down bed at a low level so as to not have to use a ladder and allow easy access to the large bathroom in the night.. perfect we thought. But no, the same problems eventually dawned on us that concerned the previous buyer which for us is around three scenarios.
1) Your partner goes to bed early or wakes late and you have nowhere to sit after making a coffee unless you climb over them back into bed. This is a real concern and now affects all our MH selections with a bed that removes the lounge and all seating.
2) My next observation seems to affect quite a few MH I have looked at and concerns the drivers seat positioning. The drivers seat in the Benimar range does not rotate enough to allow the driver to be seated in 180deg reverse position allowing you to relax facing rearward with feet up on the side cushions. It allows only partial rotation and ends up angled inwards under the table pointing at the hab door. The passenger captain chair however is perfect allowing for a relaxed position with foot rest on the side cushions or in fact any direction you choose. The driver chair gets stuck on the steering wheel and the side seating. The resolution would have been for Benimar to reduce the length of the adjacent seating or have a small cutout near to the drivers seat to allow full rotation. This is an amateur designers mistake I mean how the heck could this be overlooked not being able to rotate the drivers seat 180 in either direction.
3) Our next concern is around the comfort of the L shaped lounge seating now that the drivers seat is compromised. The L shape lounge seats are really short in depth and the cushions are so soft they collapse under my 12 stone weight making them really un-comfy. Resulting in us preferring the captains seats and then experiencing issue (2)
So in conclusion yes this van has a large lounge but its seatings not comfortable and the bed once made removes all your seating. So this was a near miss for us spending almost £50K on a van that in practice we would end up not liking.
So its back to the drawing board for us where were now looking for an option with a fixed bed and permanent front seating that is practical and comfortable.
What is it with MH designers I mean the few issues I have discovered must be obvious to others. The drivers seat could be fixed by a slight redesign of the adjacent seating, and the short collapsing side seating could be just better quality, however the issue around the loss of all seating once the bed is made is a show stopper and was for the previous owner and us too. So we are looking for a design that has a permanent lounge and one that has quality seats.
I hope this gives you food for thought especially around the practicallity of living with a particular design. I mean the loss of all seating also affects the Frankia 640 and even end kitchen MH's and was something previously we had overlooked in our rose coloured view of motorhomes.
I agree with many reviewers that there is no MH that will ever be 100% but there must be something close we have just not found that combination yet in the size and price we want to pay. Which for a 1st MH is under 7m length and < £60K
I too found the seating soft, but not particularly costly to take to an uholsterer who can redo the cushions with firmer foam , using the existing outers. I agree though about the non 180 degree drivers seat - our F560 AT has the same issue. we have no problems with the bed though, we both get up at the same time.
You made two comments on the soft cushions and seat rotations that I was completely unaware of--I appreciate you sharing. I've been considering the Chausson 650, which has similar layout length (a tad shorter at 6.4m)--you might check that one out--it might have better cushion firmness and the seats might do a full 180.
My 483 drivers seat rotates 180?.
Argh, I was waiting to check out the garage.
The garage is large enough for 2 or more bikes but as standard has no restraints to fix down any payload so these would have to be added.
Their is also a rear access apart from a door at each side. (LHS door is largest the RHS door is higher up and smaller, the rear door aperture obscures any potential bike rack ! so if you do fix a bike rack it would have to go high up and have a mechanism to lower it. But as the garage is large bikes could go in there I guess. The garage also has 12v DC and 230v AC and blown heating vent plus a LED light strip.
Lovely!
How the hell can you do a review on this motorhome and fail to mention - let alone show - the enormous easily accessible garage ! ! !
creative
Engine FORD. Never for mi