Citroen C5 Aircross Review & Prices

The C5 Aircross is Citroen’s latest entry into the mid-sized family SUV fray. Where the last-generation model was a slightly blobby-looking thing, the new model is handsome, has a well-designed cabin, and is very spacious and comfortable too. It’s not an exciting car to drive, though.

It’s like that mild-mannered school friend that you’ve not seen all summer, but come university they re-appear with a cool new look, ready to make a host of new friends.

It’s up against some highly capable alternatives in the equally stylish (but more expensive) Peugeot 3008, the sensible Skoda Karoq and the best-selling Nissan Qashqai. There’s also the electric e-C5 Aircross to consider, if it suits your lifestyle.

Citroen appears to have run the C5 Aircross through an intensive gym workout, as the new version has shed the soft, rounded corners and lumpy sides of the old car, turning it into a chiseled, sharp-cornered SUV. The headlights are slim and high-mounted, with a lower LED strip that gives the big Citroen a lot of road presence at night.

The back of the C5 Aircross is even more impressive, with a set of taillights that have been pushed up high and right out to the car’s corners, mounted on fins past the car’s pillars; like nothing else on the road.

You get a totally redesigned interior too, with a funky cabin that looks like a far more grown up version of the Citroen C3.There’s a swanky digital instrument display set into the arrow-straight upper dashboard, with an enormous portrait-oriented touchscreen that bridges the dash and the centre console, hiding a big storage space underneath with two full-sized cupholders.

Alongside the impressive lower centre storage, you get a wireless phone charging pad and a skinny cupholder in front of the infotainment - ideal for a bovine-related energy drink - as well as big door bins and a deep glovebox. The seats are very comfortable and highly adjustable, while passengers in the back are treated to ample headroom and legroom. You get a 651-litre boot regardless of engine option, with under-floor storage.

You can choose a 1.2-litre self-charging hybrid engine in any trim level, though the 145hp unit feels slow. There’s also a smooth 195hp plug-in hybrid option, but it’s only available on top-spec cars.

Where the C5 Aircross impresses most is on the road, because it’s oh-so-comfortable around town. Even on rough, rutted roads the SUV feels as though it’s laying its own tarmac, and it positively flattens big speedbumps. The light steering and pedals are very low-effort to use, too.

It’s even better on the motorway, where you feel as though you’re gliding above the road, rather than driving on a paved road. There’s minimal wind noise or tyre road, even on the large 20-inch optional wheels. Country lanes are this SUV’s achilles heel, because the flip side to its in-town comfort is a lack of steering feel and plenty of body lean into corners and fast bends.

Nonetheless, it’s a fantastic choice of family car - and you can check out the latest Citroen C5 Aircross deals on Carwow, as well as C5 Aircross lease deals. There are used Citroen C5 Aircross examples for sale through our trusted dealer network, and other used Citroen models too. Carwow can even help you sell your car when the time comes to switch.

The entry-level Citroen C5 Aircross YOU! (yes, YOU!) starts at around £30,500 - which undercuts the mechanically-similar Peugeot 3008 by around £7,000. Both get a 145hp hybrid engine, but while the Peugeot is arguably better looking, it’s not as practical as the Citroen.

The Renault Austral hybrid starts at around £34,000, but it’s not as comfortable nor as well equipped as the C5 Aircross in top-spec Max trim. You can’t get it as a plug-in hybrid model either, but that being said you’ll pay almost £39,000 for the PHEV C5 Aircross, as it only comes in top-spec trim - not miles off the 3008 PHEV at £41,000.

While it manages to be tremendously comfortable in town and on the motorway, the Citroen C5 Aircross isn’t fun on a twisty road

In town

Look past its hard-edged styling and the C5 Aircross is just as well rounded around town as ever. In fact, it’s even more comfortable than the previous model thanks to its suspension which has been developed with maximum comfort in mind.

That means that even on its largest wheels you barely feel speedbumps and potholes. Entry-level models with bigger tyres will do an even better job of soaking up the worst battered roads around town.

The extra-light steering and pedals, good forward visibility and 10.9-metre turning circle make driving the C5 Aircross on narrow roads a low-effort experience. Rear visibility isn’t great as a result of the chunky pillars at the back of the car, but the big mirrors and standard-fit camera make for hassle-free parking.

PHEV models do a good job of using electric-only power to get around which makes for silent commuting, even in ‘hybrid’ mode. The brakes are progressive enough, but the lack of pedal feel can take a moment to get used to when judging your stops.

On the motorway

Getting up to speed in the C5 Aircross is steady rather than rapid, as you don’t get any powerful engines to choose from. We’ve not driven the self-charging, 145hp hybrid model - but that engine feels a bit sluggish in the mechanically-similar SUVs from Peugeot and Vauxhall. The 195hp PHEV, meanwhile, makes decent progress.

While the changeover from electric to petrol-power feels smooth when you put your foot down in the PHEV, the 1.6-litre petrol engine really does kick into life with a tremendous roar, disrupting the silence.

Once you reach a cruise things settle down nicely, with a well-insulated cabin keeping wind and road noise at bay. Again, the chunky C-pillars mean that over-the-shoulder visibility could be better, but the suspension is so comfortable that you’ll forget about your mildly-trepidatious merge.

The adaptive cruise control is perfectly capable, so you don’t have to worry about it bouncing you around your lane as some other family SUVs like to do.

On a twisty road

You’re better off staying on the motorway when you can, because the C5 Aircross does leave a little to be desired when the going gets twisty. While there’s plenty of grip for a car with no sporting pretension, the soft suspension and lack of steering and brake pedal feel aren’t confidence inspiring in the slightest.

That’s not to say that the C5 Aircross won’t carry speed through turns, it’ll just lean heavily into them and have you sawing away at the wheel instead of naturally feeling where the car wants to go.

Sport mode is all but useless. While it does make the throttle a bit sharper and keep the car in a lower gear - great for uphill driving - you’re better off taking it easy on a B-road.

The Citroen C5 Aircross is chock-full of room and clever storage spaces, but the low-mounted cupholders can be annoying

The C5 Aircross has a similar vibe to the C3 - one of our favourite small cars on sale because of its clever, roomy cabin - but now in super-sized scale. You get loads of space up front, with an airy-feeling interior and highly-adjustable seats that make it easy to get comfortable.

Underneath the bridge-like infotainment display that joins up the centre console and dashboard is a large storage cubby, complete with two USB-C chargers and a pair of cupholders. It’s even painted a bright colour so that you can see small items more easily.

It’s a bit annoying to reach your drink on the driver’s side, but there’s a smaller cupholder on the centre console itself. If you prefer large bottles, you can fit a pair easily in the door cards.

Space in the back

This is where the C5 Aircross really earns some brownie points, because it offers buckets of headroom and leg space, as well as enough room for three adults to sit comfortably across one another. You can even recline the seat backs for a more relaxed journey in the back, while the centre armrest folds down to complete the business-class-ish experience.

The door bins are large enough for water bottles, but rear passengers will have to fight for control of the single air vent in the middle.

Boot space

The boot is a generously-sized 651-litres large, making it far bigger than the more expensive Vauxhall Grandland (550 litres), Peugeot 3008 (588 litres) and Skoda Karoq (521 litres). You get the same sized-boot in the hybrid and PHEV models, which is rare, with underfloor storage for charging cables or odds and ends.

Alternatively you can drop the boot floor down for deeper loads, but you’ll have the boot lip to contend with in that case. There are a couple of small cubbies at both sides of the boot, but they’re not all that useful. Still, a pair of hooks, anchor points and an elastic strap should help to keep loose items in place.

It’s not just the exterior that’s more stylish than the last-generation car, because the C5 Aircross’ cabin looks funkier than ever. The upper dashboard is arrow-straight, sitting atop a fabric-trimmed, curvy panel that extends onto the door cards. The driver’s display is set back within the dashboard while the infotainment display curves up from the centre console, looking as though it’s resting against the dash.

The 13.0-inch infotainment screen itself is crisp and clear to read, but the menus aren’t the most intuitive to navigate, for example you can’t just touch the smaller navigation display on the home screen to enter the nav menu - you have to press the dedicated navigation button.

The digital driver’s display is clear to read and easy-on-the-eye, too, as are the funky square-quilted seats that come on all trim levels, as well as the ambient lighting around the cabin. Material quality is a mixed bag, because while the majority of the interior - such as the dash top and the majority of the door cards, are trimmed in hard, brittle plastic, the rest of the cabin is trimmed in a pleasant fabric and overall build quality feels solid.

The entry-level C5 Aircross comes with a 1.2-litre petrol-hybrid engine that produces 145hp, and Citroen claims you can eke out 43.6mpg on mixed road driving. The highest-spec C5 Aircross Max can be had with a larger 1.6-litre plug-in hybrid powertrain, producing a more substantial 195hp and achieving a claimed 87.1mpg.

That seems like a realistic figure for daily driving with the C5 Aircross’ propensity to use its electric motor the vast majority of the time, but our testing on the island of Mallorca with little in the way of traffic and lots of winding lanes wasn’t representative of UK roads. We’ll update this review once we get ahold of one on our shores.

The 1.2-litre hybrid emits around 124g/km of CO2 emissions, while the PHEV produces almost half of that at 64g/km. Combined with its electric-only range of up to 62 miles, the plug-in hybrid is the pick of the bunch for company car drivers, sitting in one of the lowest bands for Benefit-in-Kind payments. The electric e-C5 Aircross will be cheaper still.

All C5 Aircross trim levels fall under the threshold for the luxury car supplement on years two to six as they start at under £40,000, but all it takes is an option pack or a sunroof to push it into the higher tax bracket on the plug-in hybrid.

Euro NCAP has awarded the C5 Aircross with its own crash test score, but it shares its result with the mechanically-similar Peugeot 3008, which attained a four-star safety rating when tested in 2025. It scored 80% for adult occupant safety and a more reassuring 85% for child occupant safety - including two ISOFIX points in the rear seats.

Four stars is still disappointing considering most of its alternatives have five-star ratings, but you do get a range of safety features as standard including automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and driver attention monitor.

The Citroen C5 Aircross is too new to have any issues come up yet, but Citroen only came in 16th place out of 31 manufacturers entered into the 2025 Driver Power survey for owner satisfaction. That’s bang-on in the middle, but considering the SUV is so similar to the Peugeot 3008 and Peugeot came sixth in the same survey, that might be some peace of mind.

You get an impressive eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty with any new Citroen, so long as you keep up regular main-dealer servicing. That’s similar to Toyota’s warranty, but you get extra coverage with the Japanese manufacturer - 10 years as opposed to eight.