Citroen Relay Review 2025: Price, specs & load capacity

If you need a large van for your business that has lots of space, versatility and flexibility, then there’s plenty to recommend the Citroen Relay. You have lots of choice over the length, height and style of your vehicle, and there are a variety of off-the-shelf conversion and customisation options available at source, too. You also have a variety of powertrain options to choose from, so you should be able to find a Relay to suit your needs.

The answer to this question might well be different for everyone, because the Relay is available in a vast variety of different forms to suit a wide range of business needs, and it’s likely that no two sets of business needs will be the same.

When making your choice, keep a couple of things in mind. We’d advise selecting a van that’s as small as you can get away with because that will reduce your purchase prices and running costs. However, be sure that you don’t overdo it so that you end up with a van that’s too small for you to be able to conduct your business easily.

If you work all over the place, then you’ll need one of the long-legged diesels, but if your work is concentrated in your local area, then the all-electric version could save you a significant slice in running costs.

Similar? How about identical? Yep, there are several large vans that are pretty much identical to the Relay in terms of their mechanicals, and also look very similar, too. These are the other large-van offerings from other brands within the enormous Stellantis umbrella company, and they include the Fiat Ducato, Citroen Relay, and Vauxhall Movano. 

Other large van rivals from other companies include the full-size Ford Transit, Mercedes Sprinter, Volkswagen Crafter, Renault Master, Nissan Interstar, and Iveco Daily.

You wouldn’t expect a large panel van to be the last word in plushness and sumptuous quality, so you’ll be in no way disappointed that the Relay isn’t. The hard plastic finishes in the cabin are textured reasonably nicely so that they look a little bit more tactile than they actually are, and they should also wear well, even under hard daily use. The switchgear, meanwhile, works in a reasonably slick way for an extra feeling of solidity and polish.

There’s been quite a bit of change with the Relay’s infotainment provision over the years: that’s because it’s been on sale for such a very long time, and Citroen has made frequent changes and upgrades over that time in order to keep it competitive with newer rivals. With older versions, low-end versions had DAB radio with Bluetooth and a USB port, while higher-end versions got a five-inch touchscreen with integrated navigation. We never got to experience either system, though.

Things are a little different with today’s modern-day Relay. Go for the all-electric e-Relay, and the infotainment system you get centres around a seven-inch touchscreen fitted with DAB, Bluetooth and a USB port (but with no nav), accompanied by a seven-inch digital instrument screen behind the steering wheel. In diesel-powered Relays, the central screen is demoted to a five-inch item (again, with no nav), while the second instrument screen is replaced by traditional analogue dials. 

However, we’ve never encountered either layout because all Relays we’ve driven have been fitted with the optional infotainment upgrade. This brings a 10-inch touchscreen with integrated navigation, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and restores the digital instrument panel. You also get double USB ports, plus wireless phone charging.

The upgraded system is actually pretty basic compared with some of the super-complex ones you see in many passenger cars nowadays, but that actually makes it easier to find your way around. Not all the menus are completely clear, but you should find the function you’re looking for without too much faffing.

Depending on what your business needs are, you can have your Relay in a variety of different forms. The most common body style is the good old panel van, but it can also be had as a Window Van, Chassis Cab, Chassis Crew Cab and Floor Cab. Depending on your loadspace needs, you can choose between three different heights (H1, H2 and H3), three different lengths (L2, L3 and L4), and two different Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) options (3.5 tonnes and 4.25 tonnes). A few years ago, and even more length and GVW options were offered, but these have since been discontinued.

No matter which of these modern-day options you pick, the width of your load bay (between the wheel arches) is always the same at 1,422mm. And, depending on what choices you make regarding the height and length of your van, your loadspace will be between 1,662mm and 2,172mm tall, and between 3,120mm and 4,070mm long. If you’re looking at overall load volume, even the smallest Relay (the L2 H1) has a capacity of 10 cubic metres, while the biggest version (the L4 H3) can take up to 17 cubic metres of stuff.

For many users, payload will be more important than capacity. The precise permissible figure of your particular van will depend on its size and powertrain. The worst figure you’ll find is on the very smallest version of the all-electric e-Relay, which has a payload of just 710kg. However, all other e-Relays have far better figures of between 1,385kg and 1,460kg.

By and large, the diesels have better payload figures across the board. The lowest you’ll find is 1,235kg, but the norm within the diesel range is more like 1,400kg or thereabouts, and the biggest figure you’ll see is a whopping 2050kg.

Working vehicles like this often need to tow, so it’s handy to know that all electric versions are rated to pull a braked trailer of up to 2,400kg: that’s really good because many EVs are a bit rubbish on this score. Go for a diesel, meanwhile, and towing weights will range between 2,250kg and 3,000kg.

In terms of access to your loadspace, all Relays get a pair of doors on the back end, and these can open up to 180 degrees to allow you to get at the space a bit more easily. Your standard equipment also includes a sliding door on the nearside of the vehicle, giving a nice, wide opening, while a second sliding door can be added on the other side of the vehicle as an optional extra. The floor of the load area is finished in bare metal, and your standard kit also includes a light inside the load bay.

Up front, the cabin features three seats side-by-side, and happily, there’s enough space for three chunky workmates to travel in reasonable comfort thanks to the width of the vehicle.

Vans always tend to have far longer lifespans than cars, and this generation of the Relay is no exception. It’s been plying its trade for such a massive amount of time, in fact, that it’s been offered with a vast variety of different engine options over its lifetime to keep pace with competitors and comply with changing laws. For instance, it was originally offered with 2.2-litre diesel motors of various different outputs, but Peugeot switched these out in 2016, swapping them for 2.0-litre units in order to comply with new emissions laws. The Relay range then returned to 2.2s a few years later down the line. We never got to try any of these early engines, though.

These days, the majority of Relay versions are powered by a 2.2-litre diesel engine developing 140PS, and it can be specified with either a six-speed manual transmission or an eight-speed automatic gearbox.

You’ll have very little reason for complaint if you choose to settle for the manual. The engine feels grunty and strong right throughout the rev range, so you don’t have to work it too hard to make the Relay build speed at a decent rate. In fact, if you do feel the compulsion to apply more revs, then you’ll soon be going a bit faster than is comfortable in a massive vehicle like the Relay.

With the tremendous mass of the massive body it has to haul, plus the added mass of whatever goods are on board, the engine might require you to make a downshift to rebuild your speed when the traffic around you slows, but that’s to be expected. That said, the automatic gearbox does make your life a bit easier in the ebb-and-flow of traffic, and it operates pretty smoothly, too. You’ll also like the way that it manages to keep the engine within its power band very effectively, but without over-revving it.

If you’re after a wee bit more power, there’s another version of the 2.2 diesel with 180PS, offered exclusively with the automatic gearbox. We haven’t yet had the chance to try it, though.

Early pre-2024 examples of the all-electric e-Relay had a 120PS electric drive motor, fed by a battery of either 37kWh or 75kWh in capacity. However, we never got to try an e-Relay of this vintage.

We did get to try one from after the Relay’s 2024 facelift, though, at which point the electric powertrain was completely overhauled. It received a much larger 110kWh battery and a much more powerful electric motor developing a maximum power output of 279PS, and maximum torque of 410Nm. If you’re thinking that those numbers might sound quite high for a large commercial vehicle, then you’re certainly not wrong.

There are three driving modes to choose from. The van defaults to Normal mode when you start it up, but from there, you can select Power mode to maximise performance at the expense of a little bit of range or select Eco mode to shift the bias in the opposite direction.

We can’t see much of a need to switch things up if we’re honest. Normal mode already delivers surprisingly strong acceleration, both away from the mark and on the move. Power mode kicks things up a small amount on both scores, but in a large and unwieldy vehicle like the Relay, the level of acceleration it gives you actually feels like it’s a bit too much. You’ll find yourself scurrying forwards at an unnervingly fast rate, and then getting on the brakes to get your speed back to more comfortable levels. Most Relay drivers simply won’t be in that much of a hurry.

Select Eco mode, and there’s a minuscule drop-off in away-from-the-mark acceleration (although it really is minuscule), but your on-the-move acceleration is reined in rather more, and your top speed is limited to 56mph. Even then, though, you’ll have more than enough pace for most driving situations, so you can happily roll around in Eco most of the time to maximise your range, and only resort to Normal mode when you hit the motorway.

Once upon a time, the e-Relay was available with two choices of battery pack, one with a capacity of 37kWh and one with a capacity of 75kWh. The first option was borderline pointless because it had a frankly abysmal range of just 74 miles according to official WLTP figures. Also consider the fact that you’ll likely get a good deal less in the real world from any EV, especially in cold weather or on the motorway, and it becomes even more pointless. The larger battery, meanwhile, gave the e-Relay an official range figure of 154 miles, which still isn’t brilliant.

Happily, the electric powertrain was completely overhauled during the 2024 facelift, giving it not only a much more powerful electric motor but also a far bigger battery, with a capacity of 110kWh. This boosted the range up to a much more respectable 263 miles, which by the standard of large electric vans, is really good.

The diesel models sound pretty old-school as you pick up speed, and the clatter can get pretty loud if you really work the engine particularly hard. Happily, though, the engine has enough low- and mid-range muscle that you don’t often have to, so the noise rarely gets to problematic levels.

Get yourself up to motorway speed on a constant throttle, and the engine noise fades away into the background. You’ll still feel vibrations coming through the pedals and steering wheel, though, as these are pretty much ever-present.

The gearshift in the manual model is a wee bit notchy but not problematically so, while the automatic transmission swaps between its ratios smoothly, and fairly quickly. The electric version doesn’t have a gearbox at all, so your progress is unhampered by gearchanges of any sort, and you hear barely a whine from the electric motor at any speed.

You might expect wind noise to be an issue at motorway speed in a vehicle with such a blunt shape as the Relay, but it’s actually not. However, it’s difficult to tell whether that noise is surprisingly well suppressed, or whether it’s simply being drowned out by the considerable road noise. You hear it at moderate speed, but it gets louder the faster you go, and by the time you get to motorway speeds, it can be properly wearing.

The Citroen Relay was first released at a time when safety measures such as automatic emergency braking weren’t legally mandatory, so on most early Relays, such features were optional extras that cost buyers extra, and so used examples might not have them as a result. Of course, these measures have since been made standard across the board in line with the law, and in a similar vein, the precise amount of safety kit you get as standard has changed regularly over the Relay’s long, long life. The general rule of thumb is simple: if buying a used Relay, then the later an example you buy, the more standard safety gear it’s likely to have.

Today, the Citroen Relay’s roster of standard safety equipment includes three front airbags to help keep you and your colleagues from harm should the worst happen, plus a variety of driver aids to help ensure that the worst doesn’t happen in the first place. These include automatic emergency braking, a lane support system, traffic sign recognition, driver drowsiness detection, and intelligent speed limit assist.

More safety measures are available on the options list. Side- and curtain airbags can be added for a few quid extra, while a speed limiter is a no-cost option. The City Plus Pack adds blind spot assist, rear cross-traffic alert, 360-degree parking sensors and a digital rear-view mirror to your van. A reversing camera can also be added with other option packs.

Interestingly, adaptive cruise control is not available on the Relay despite it being an option on another large van from within the Stellantis stable, namely the Fiat Ducato.

The Relay, along with all the other related large-van offerings from the Stellantis Group brands, has achieved the Gold standard in Euro NCAP’s Commercial Vehicle safety ratings. This is the second-highest accolade you can get behind the Platinum standard, which initially sounds quite impressive, but it becomes rather less impressive when you consider that of all the vans ever tested, only one has failed to achieve one of the top two levels.

If you’re considering an early example of the e-Relay, then Citroen says that the version with the 37kWh battery will need around six hours to take on a full charge from a regular 7.4kW AC home wall box charger, while the 75kWh battery will take around 12 hours. If you need to charge more quickly when you’re already on the move, then Citroen says that a sufficiently powerful public DC rapid charging station will take around an hour to deliver a 0-80% charge on both versions (which is confusing given the considerable difference in battery size). That’s due to a rather modest maximum DC charging speed of just 50kW.

If you’re considering an example from after the 2024 facelift, however, then the picture changes significantly due to its much bigger 110kWh battery. The considerable extra capacity, while also bringing a lot more range, will also mean that the battery pack will take much longer to replenish on a domestic wall box charger; Citroen gives a figure of 16 hours and 40 minutes.

However, the facelift also brought a significant hike in maximum DC charging speed, so in the unlikely event that you can find a powerful enough charging station running at its full potential, the facelifted e-Relay can take on charge at a rate of up to 150kW. At that speed, that same 0-80% top-up can be delivered in just 55 minutes, despite the extra battery capacity. 

Do bear in mind, of course, that DC chargers cost way more to use than charging at home, so shouldn’t be relied upon on a regular basis. As a ballpark, a full charge at home will cost either £11 or £21 on the pre-facelift e-Relay depending on which battery you have, and around £31 on the post-facelift one: that’s all assuming that your domestic power is billed at the UK’s national average price. Power that comes out of DC public rapid chargers, meanwhile, usually costs around three times that price.

Our usual source of data on the subject of reliability is the HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index, put together by our brilliant sister website. However, it won’t be of much use where the Relay is concerned, because it doesn’t include commercial vehicles, only passenger cars. 

That might be a good thing for the Relay, though, because it means this vehicle didn’t contribute to Citroen’s fairly woeful performance in the study. In the last instalment, the brand was named as the fifth-least reliable manufacturer in the entire study, out of 29 carmakers. What’s more, a couple of the brands with which the  Relay shares its mechanical fared even worse, with Peugeot voted as the second-worst manufacturer, and Fiat third-worst. Yikes.

It will come as some considerable comfort, then, that you get an unlimited-mileage manufacturer warranty for the first two years of your ownership, plus a third year of retailer-supplied cover, limited to 100,000 miles. With the e-Relay, the battery pack is covered for eight years or 100,000 miles, and if it falls below 70% of its original capacity during that timescale, then it will be replaced or repaired free of charge.

Buy yourself an e-Relay, and the chances are that it’ll sit in group 43 for insurance. There’s just one version of the electric-powered Relay that doesn’t, and that’s the sole version with a GVW of 3.5 tonnes rather than 4.0 tonnes, and that sits in group 39 instead. The diesels sit between groups 36 and 38, with the majority occupying group 37. Since insurance groupings run from 1 to 50, with group 1 vehicles being the cheapest to insure and group 50 vehicles being the most expensive, you can deduce that no version of the Relay will be particularly cheap to cover.

Buy yourself a Relay, and it’ll fall into one of two tax classes. The vast majority of them have an official Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) of 3,500kg, and as such, will be taxed as Light Goods Vehicles (LGVs). These will be taxed at a flat rate by the DVLA, a rate that currently stands at £335 per year.

Relays with a GVW of more than the 3,500kg threshold (the giveaway is the number 40 in the name of the van, rather than 35), however, are taxed as Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs). With these, there are way more variables in the precise amount of VED you pay, so it gets rather complicated. For a definitive answer, check your vehicle's V5C document for its precise tax class, and check it with the DVLA or online.

If you’re considering a used Citroen Relay, then scouring the classifieds might turn up trim level names including X, Enterprise, Driver and Worker. That’s because, in years gone by, the Relay has been offered in quite a wide variety of trim levels at the same time. And, even at those points in time when the choice of trim levels has been more limited, the Relay has been on sale for such a long time that the amount of kit provided at each stage has changed frequently, creating more and more complexity.

Unravelling it all in detail here would be both massively time-consuming and utterly pointless, so just remember this: Citroen upgraded the Relay’s trim levels almost constantly as time passed to keep this aging vehicle competitive with newer rivals, so the later the example of used Relay you buy, the more standard kit it’s likely to have.

These days, there’s just one ‘Enterprise’ equipment grade offered, although there are a few very minor differences in standard kit depending on whether your Relay is a panel van, a window van, a chassis cab, or whatever. There are a few slightly greater differences depending on whether you pick a diesel Relay or an electric one.

Go for the EV, and the list of standard-fit kit includes automatic climate control air- conditioning, rear parking sensors, electrically adjustable and heated twin-lens door mirrors, electric front windows, an electronic parking brake, and fabric upholstery. 

Go for the diesel, and your climate control is demoted to manual air-conditioning, and your electric parking brake is substituted by a manual one, but you’re compensated by gaining cruise control. There are also a handful of differences in infotainment specification between diesel and electric, which we’ve documented in the corresponding section of this review