Used Citroen C5 Aircross cars for sale

Used Citroen C5 Aircross pros and cons

Is a second-hand Citroen C5 Aircross a good car?

The Citroen C5 Aircross is a very French take on the family SUV, with a stylish cabin featuring big, comfy seats and a focus on comfort over sporty handling. It’s like the anti-BMW, and it was good enough that the C5 Aircross picked up the Family Values Award at the 2024 Carwow Car of the Year Awards.

You get a stylish cabin – the overall design and quality won’t worry the premium German brands very much, but the inside of the C5 Aircross looks smart and is well-made, with big, clear digital dials and a large infotainment screen. Citroen’s ‘Advanced Comfort’ seats are wonderfully squashy and comfortable, although they could do with firmer support for long journeys. 

The boot is big — just what you want from an SUV — and the rear seats are on slides, so you can sacrifice legroom for boot space, or vice-versa. If you go for the plug-in hybrid model, that boot space does shrink somewhat, but that’s par for the course among its rivals too.

The focus on comfort extends to the suspension, and the C5 Aircross feels almost as soft and squashy as a 1970s Citroen. That’s great for easing away long motorway journeys, and it’s especially good around town where the soft springs just roll over big bumps, while the high driving position and big windows make manoeuvring easy. It’s less good on a twisty road, where the C5 Aircross can feel a bit ‘boaty.’ A Ford Kuga feels more fun to drive.

What to look for when buying a used Citroen C5 Aircross

The C5 Aircross seems to be a reliable car, although with the 1.2 petrol engine it’s always worth finding out when the cambelt was last changed, and then changing it well ahead of the recommended interval. The diesels can suffer from clogged-up diesel particulate filters and issues with the exhaust-gas recirculation valve too. The infotainment system is often a point of concern too, although that tends to be more about responsiveness and layout, rather than an actual broken bit. 

The C5 Aircross finished in a truly impressive ninth position overall in the Driver Power Top 50 Cars To Own survey, while Citroen as a brand came a really good fifth out of 32 marques in the customer satisfaction survey, with a mere 15 per cent of owners reporting problems.