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.

It’s not as if the competition is lacking, either. The C5 Aircross sits in a staggeringly competitive market, which includes the likes of the Nissan Qashqai, the Skoda Karoq, the VW Tiguan, the Mazda CX-5, the Ford Kuga, the Kia Sportage, and the Citroen’s close cousin, the Peugeot 3008. If you stretch the budget a bit, the BWM X1 and Audi Q3 could also be considered as alternatives. 

To stand out from that crowd, Citroen has given The C5 Aircross very soft and almost cuddly styling — a relief from all the sharp-edges and multiple angles of many of the others. It’s not a boring car to look at either, with early models getting the cute little ‘air bubble’ door defenders, lifted from the smaller C4 Cactus. A makeover in 2023 gave the C5 Aircross a more contemporary look, but it’s still distinctive among its peers. 

There’s a stylish cabin too. 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. That infotainment isn’t the most simple thing to use, though — in fact, it can be quite maddening at times. Equally, space in the back isn’t as good as you’ll find in some others. On the upside, 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 those 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.

That plug-in hybrid can achieve some spectacular fuel economy figures if you keep the battery topped up and use the 30 mile electric range as much as possible (it’ll be closer to 20 miles in real-world conditions) but that’s only good if you have a driveway and a home charger. Equally, the plug-in C5 Aircross gets quite thirsty on longer drives, so for those consider a mild-hybrid 1.2-litre turbo petrol, or go for one of the BlueHDI 1.5 or 1.6 diesels. 

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. 

That’s probably not a huge priority for most drivers though, who will be more fixated on the roomy cabin and boot, the low running costs, and the reliability — something that Citroen has become much better at in recent years. 

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.