Citroen C4 Review 2025: Price, specs & boot space

If you want a car that'll stand out in a car park of Volkswagen Golfs and Vauxhall Astras, the Citroen C4 is a great choice. It's grown up since the old C4 Cactus but it remains a quirky alternative to mainstream family hatchbacks. While there are more practical alternatives on the market, the Citroen C4's excellent ride quality and supportive seats make it our pick for buyers seeking a car that puts comfort over driving dynamics. 

The facelift merely takes everything we already liked about the outgoing version and lightly upgrades it. The question is, do you still like the way it looks? If so, it’s still a car we recommend to those after a soothing experience for both driver and passenger. 

The main choice you'll need to make here is whether to go for a Citroen C4 or a Citroen e-C4. It's hard to say which is 'best' out of these for the buyer, as a lot of it would come down to personal circumstances. For instance, if they have somewhere to charge it and if they're not often on trips that exceed the range of the battery. Whether or not it's to be a company car, taking advantage of the low 'benefit in kind' tax rate, is also a factor. 

If an EV does fit into your motoring life, it's the Citroen e-C4 we'd lean towards. The electric powertrain's smooth and effortless delivery goes very well with the car's emphasis on comfort, contrasting with the three-cylinder engine, which isn't the most refined thing in the world. 

Paired with the top-of-the-range Max trim, which also upgrades you to the bigger battery and more powerful motor, this still isn't an expensive car. That being said, the Plus trim will tick all the right boxes for most, and although that also means getting a smaller battery and slightly less powerful motor, the drop in range and in power is not large, but it's quite a bit cheaper. 

Because Citroen sits in the massive Stellantis group of brands, there are multiple cars that are built using the same platform, powertrains and technology as the C4 and e-C4. The closest to the C4 in terms of size/body type would be the Peugeot 3008 and Vauxhall Mokka, but the Peugeot 308 and Vauxhall Astra hatchbacks could also be considered alternatives.

Away from Stellantis, hatchbacks like the Ford Focus, Skoda Octavia, Vauxhall Astra and Volkswagen Golf compete with the C4 for sales, while rival SUVs come in the form of the Renault Arkana, Toyota C-HR, Mazda CX-30 and Kia XCeed among others. You could even consider the C4 a budget alternative to things like the BMW X4, given its coupe-SUV body style. 

You're not going to mistake the Citroen C4's interior for a more expensive alternative, but it's just as good as you'd find in something like a Ford Focus. The textured dash looks (and feels) a bit scratchy for our liking, but there are soft-touch materials aplenty on the door cards and elsewhere in the cabin. The glossy black plastic on the centre console lifts the interior, while touch points like the climate control toggles are pretty smart. Overall, the interior of the C4 feels much better than we're used to from the French brand.

That said, you’ll find a few disappointingly flimsy finishes lower down in the car – things like the door bins and the glove box – but the cabin feels like it’ll wear well over time.  The same probably can’t be said for the shiny 'piano black' trim, a common choice for modern cars that has a tendency to get scratched up pretty quickly. 

The C4 compares well compared to other electric cars, at least. Even the Volkswagen ID.3 has some surprisingly flimsy materials in the cabin, while it's in another league to the ancient Nissan Leaf.

The Citroen C4 comes with a 10-inch navigation system which, unusually for a modern electric car, doesn't try to be too clever in its operation. You even get a physical volume knob, which might look old school but is much better than having to root through menus to turn the volume down. There are a few physical shortcut buttons, too, although it stops short of having a rotary dial (like that in the Mazda MX-30) to make operation easier on the move.

There are slicker navigation systems on the market, although the graphics look smart enough and there isn't much of a lag between you touching the screen and it responding. If you want to mirror apps from your phone, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, while wireless phone charging is standard on top-spec Shine Plus models. 

The new ChatGPT AI integration proved frustrating during the launch of the car. We triggered it accidentally several times, causing a graphic to block the most important part of the navigation, and then it refused to go away. Telling it to ‘stop’ merely caused it to tell a lame joke - “I can’t stop the car”. Great. 

In terms of USB ports, the C4 is showing its age, still using the old-style sockets rather than newer USB-C. The six-speaker sound system is decent enough, but nothing spectacular. 

With 380 litres of luggage space, the Citroen C4's boot isn't particularly big, but it is usefully square. Access is fairly high, like in an SUV, but a height-adjustable boot floor means you can avoid an annoying lip for lifting things over. The rear seats split 60/40 but they don’t drop entirely flat… still, there’s quite a lot of space with them lowered.

Space for rear passengers is pretty good. Three adults would feel a bit cramped but there’s a reasonable amount of room for two. Headroom is fine although foot and legroom is a bit limited – not helped by a lump in the middle of the floor.

The C4’s at its best in the front. There’s loads of space, with a generous amount of adjustment in the steering wheel and driving position. You'll need to hunt out a top-spec model if you want electrically heated front seats.

You'll find a useful amount of storage areas, too. There's a tray for playing your smartphone, cup holders in the centre console and more room under the central armrest. The door bins are big enough for a water bottle, too.

If you want more boot space, the longer Citroen C4 X doesn't cost any more yet comes with a handier 510-litre boot, although that extra practicality is offset by a more awkward saloon-style opening. 

Citroen has streamlined the C4's engine line-up in recent years. There's no longer a diesel engine (and they're a rare sight on the used market if you do want one), and there's only one pure petrol engine on offer, the 1.2-litre PureTech 130. 

As you might have gathered from the number in the name, this engine produces 130PS. There are also two mild hybrids based around the same engine, called the Hybrid 100 and Hybrid 136. They produce, you guessed it, 100PS and 136PS. These don't use the same gearbox as the Puretech, though - the 130 uses an eight-speed automatic, while the 100 and 136 have six-speed dual-clutch automatics. 

Along with the combustion/hybrid engines, the electric powertrains in the e-C4 are also carried over as is. The standard setup involves a 50kWh battery pack paired with a motor producing 136PS. So, exactly the same as the Hybrid 136, but there's more weight here to shift. Then again, there's more torque - 260Nm vs 230 in the Hybrid - and the delivery is near instantaneous. 

There's also a 54kWh battery option which comes with a more powerful 156PS motor, although the torque figure remains the same. This powertrain can only be combined with the range-topping Max trim level. 

The standard 50kWh battery pack can travel 219 miles on a full charge according to the WLTP cycle. These lab-obtained figures are notoriously difficult to match in real life, so don't expect to get over 200 miles without charging, even if the conditions are optimal. You have more change of braking beyond that 200-mile barrier with the 54kWh, Max trim-exclusive battery, which has an official range of 257 miles.

These figures might not sound too spectacular, but compared to other similarly priced EVs, they're decent enough.

Like the majority of cars at this price point, the Citroen C4 uses an inline-three-cylinder engine. These engines can pass through vibrations into the cabin and don't always feel the most eager when you put your foot down. That's certainly the case with the C4, although it's probably a bit more refined than Renault's three-pots, if not as smooth as the 1.0-litre unit used across many Volkswagen Group cars. 

In any case, switching from the C4 to the e-C4, the more relaxing nature of the latter is evident - the electric powertrain suits the car's relaxed nature much better than the hybrid. 

There’s plenty of standard autonomous safety kit fitted across the Citroen C4 range, designed to prevent you from being in a crash in the first place. This includes a standard safety pack, with Active Safety Brake ready to apply the brakes to prevent a collision. There’s Lane Keeping Assist, which nudges the steering if you stray from your lane on the motorway and Driver Attention Alert which will tell you off if you’re not paying enough attention. 

There's also now a speed limit recognition system with audible and visual warnings if you go too fast, but it's easy enough to switch off. You might want to do this as the system sometimes displays the wrong speed, so you'll get an annoying, unwarranted bonging noise. Citroen’s Connect Box Emergency and Assistance System is standard – giving you a big red ‘SOS’ button to contact the emergency services, while in-crash braking will prevent further collisions during an incident.

Max models with the Safety Pack Plus, adding a video and radar-assisted Active Safety Brake that's better at detecting cyclists at night, and a more advanced traffic sign recognition system.

The updated Citroen C4 hasn't yet been tested by Euro NCAP, but the pre-facelift version was assessed in 2021. It managed four stars, which isn't a bad result, but some of the car's rivals have achieved five stars in testing. 

Citroen as a brand didn't do brilliantly in the most recent HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index survey, sitting in the middle of the list of the 10 least reliable brands. It isn't the worst-placed Stellantis-owned brand, though, with Fiat and Peugeot appearing even lower. 

That score will have been dragged down by older models, though. Citroen has come a long way in terms of reliability, and we haven't heard of any major common issues with the current-generation C4. 

Citroen's warranty isn't anything to write home about, considering some rivals offer as much as seven years of coverage. The French brand on the other hand offers three years capped at 60,000 miles, although the mileage is unlimited in the first two years.

The Puretech 130 Plus has the lowest insurance group of 18E, while Max trim bumps this up to 19E, while the Plus and Max C4s with the Hybrid 136 powertrain are in 22E. The electric versions will cost you more to insure, with the e-C4 You sitting in 21E, and the 54kWh e-C4 Max in 22E.

Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) for the PureTech 130 models is more expensive than the rest of the range, coming in at £270 for the first-year rate. Compare that to the Hybrid 100 and Hybrid 136, which will set you back a more modest £185. After 1 April 2025, the e-C4 will no longer get out of paying for VED - along with all other EVs, it'll be charged at the same rate.

Citroen simplified the trim range for the C4 to three versions in 2024, comprising You!, Plus, and Max. All of these have been carried over for the 2025-on facelifted version. 

The You! comes with 18-inch alloy wheels, rear parking sensors, automatic headlights and wipers, and electric windows all round. You also get a 5.5-inch driver's instrument display, 10-inch infotainment screen, Urban Grey upholstery, air conditioning, keyless entry and ignition, and cruise control.

The Plus builds on this with a reversing camera, Citroen's Smart Pad Support to hold an iPad or tablet for the front seat passenger, driver's head-up display, a seven-inch instrument display, and 3D sat-nav with Real Time Traffic updates and Speedcam warning. 

At the pinnacle of the present ranges sits the Max trim. This features an upgraded parking assistance system, heated front seats, adaptive cruise control and high beam assistance. You also get various visual enhancements including tinted rear windows, gold trim elements and a chrome lower sill plate. 

Inside, meanwhile, there’s a ‘Metropolitan Grey’ finish for the cabin and synthetic leather for the seats. On the subject of seating, all versions get the new Advanced Comfort seats. 

The Citroen C4 was previously available in four trim levels: Sense, Sense Plus, Shine and Shine Plus. Entry-level Sense models came with LED headlights and 18-inch alloy wheels as standard. Inside, there’s a 10-inch touchscreen display with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as DAB radio. 

Safety equipment includes Citroen’s Standard Safety Pack with video-assisted Active Safety Brake, Speed Limit Information, Lane Keeping Assist and Driver Attention Alert and Forward Collision Warning. Additional standard specification includes an electric parking brake, rear parking sensors, dual-zone climate control and Citroen’s Connect Box Emergency and Assistance System. For improved comfort, all Sense models come with Citroen’s Progressive Hydraulic Cushions suspension system and Advanced Comfort seats.

Sense Plus added a head-up display, navigation (with TomTom Live services) and a clever tablet computer holder for front-seat passengers. LED interior lighting, auto-dimming rear-view mirror and two USB sockets are also standard. To assist with manoeuvring tight spots, Sense Plus models also come with a rear parking camera, while there are also electrically folding door mirrors and an alarm – the latter a strange omission on the basic car.

The Shine trim level offered dark tinted rear windows and keyless entry/start, as well as a host of driver-assist systems. These include the Safety Pack Plus (Active Safety Brake with video and radar technology), Speed Limit Information and Extended Traffic Sign Recognition, Adaptive Cruise Control and Active Blind Spot Detection. 

Topping the range was the Shine Plus model with its premium sound system and opulent Hype Black interior ambiance. Black leather and textile upholstery is standard as well as electric driver’s seat adjustment and heated front seats. A wireless phone charger is standard, as well as four USB sockets. The C4 Shine also comes with Highway Driver Assist, which uses cameras to adjust the speed and direction of the car within its lane.