Our cars
Grand finale
Our Citroen C5 Aircross prepares to leave our fleet by topping up its mileage count.
Sean Keywood
Recently, I attended two car launch events on successive weeks for Business Car, well up in the north of England. That meant trips of more than five hours in each direction, augmented on the first excursion in particular by some heavy traffic and inclement weather. It could have been a horror story, but the truth is our C5 Aircross made the journeys seem easy and straightforward. OK, this was in part due to features lots of cars have these days, such as an automatic gearbox and adaptive cruise control. However, there’s also the degree to which the car’s ‘Advanced Comfort’ seats and suspension live up to their name, and in a marketplace where so many unsuitable models are given ‘sports- inspired’ firmness, I’m confident few alternatives would have left me arriving at my destinations feeling so fresh. In addition, where some cars’ phone-to- touchscreen connections can be unreliable,
Why we’re running it
To see if Citroen’s comfort- focused approach can prove the secret to SUV success.
Citroen C5 Aircross Shine Plug-in Hybrid 225
P11D price £35,780 As tested £38,095 Official consumption 222.3mpg Our average consumption 38.8mpg Mileage 8,270
the Citroen’s never missed a beat, meaning my sanity-preserving stream of music and podcasts was never interrupted. It seemed a pretty strong test finale for the C5 Aircross, which is approaching the end of its time on our fleet. However, it’s far from just being a motorway specialist. I’ve commented before on its spacious interior, with three individual rear seats (that can all slide, recline, and fold separately), but hadn’t realised until recently, when helping friends to shop
for a family car, the degree to which it excels here. In fact, with the exception of the more expensive Range Rover Evoque, it’s the widest C-segment SUV available by a good few centimetres – including in comparison with other Stellantis group SUVs on the same platform. And that’s a difference not to be sniffed at by those regularly transporting three rear seat passengers, or alternatively needing to accommodate a child seat or two. As I’ve relayed before over my time with the C5 Aircross, there are some niggles. There’s the way petrol will sometimes spurt back out when the car is filled with fuel. And there’s the way that, on occasion, the electric tailgate begins closing itself on my head for no apparent reason – and needs a surprising degree of resistance on my part to realise the error of its ways and cease its ingress.
One thing that isn’t the car’s fault though is its fuel economy. I have no home charger, and it came with no three-pin plug cable, so charging was an extremely scarce occurrence, which we should all know by now is definitely not the way to run a plug-in hybrid – my 38.8mpg average is yet further proof that drivers unable to charge should be directed to alternative powertrains. Still, at least the PHEV’s 225hp total output offers strong performance.
Overall, in my view there’s a lot more that’s good than bad about the C5 Aircross, and although for my personal requirements a diesel (remember those?) might have been better, I can imagine that for a driver who has a family to transport, prioritises ride comfort over sporty handling, and who has the home charger and mileage patterns required for a plug-in hybrid to make sense, our test car would be a real winner.
44 | May 2023 |
www.businesscar.co.uk
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