Ford Tourneo Courier Review 2024

Prices for the Ford Tourneo Courier start at around £25,000 when bought brand new, and that’s around the same as what you’ll pay for a mid-range Vauxhall Corsa. However, you get far more space and practicality with the Ford, plus a good amount of standard equipment, so if you’re looking to maximise usability and versatility with your choice of car, but without breaking the bank, then the Tourneo Courier is definitely a very strong candidate for your money.

The Ford Transit Courier on which the Tourneo version is based is offered with various petrol and diesel engines, but the Tourneo is only offered with a single petrol choice. That’ll remain the case until the all-electric version arrives a little while later.

Happily, the petrol engine in question is a little cracker. It’s a little limited for power, sure, and it doesn’t make the Tourneo Courier very fast, but in every other respect, it’s really impressive. So far, we’ve only tried the standard six-speed manual gearbox and not the seven-speed twin-clutch automatic, but even so, we can’t see much point in upgrading from the slick-shifting manual.

Of the trim levels, stick with Titanium, which has everything you need at a more affordable price than the Active car.

Perhaps one of the Tourneo Courier’s most direct rivals comes from in-house, because it’s not a whole lot smaller than the Tourneo Connect that sits just above it in Ford’s range. However, the two cars are very different, because while the Tourneo Courier shares its platform and many parts with the Ford Puma SUV, the larger Tourneo Connect is mechanically very similar to the Volkswagen Caddy underneath, and that’s thanks to a joint development partnership on the two vehicles. The Caddy itself is another rival, too.

Once upon a time, the Stellantis stable offered a whole bunch of rival vehicles in the form of the Citroen Berlingo, Peugeot Rifter, Vauxhall Combo Life, and so on. However, many of these vehicles are only offered as EVs, so although they will play rival when the electric version of the Courier arrives, they’re not directly comparable at the moment.

There’s no dressing it up, here’s where the Tourneo Connect’s commercial vehicle roots really show through. It’s all very solid and sturdy, with no hint of a flex or a creak in any of the panels you come across, so the cabin feels like it’ll last a lifetime of relentless family abuse.

That said, however, very little concession has been made to aesthetics or tactility. The design is blander than a no-sauce Nando’s, and pretty much every surface is fashioned from thick grey plastic with a hard and grainy finish that isn’t particularly appealing, either to the eyeballs or fingertips. If you want your car to feel palatial and posh, then the Tourneo Courier really isn’t for you.

Both trim levels of the Tourneo Courier get the same SYNC 4 infotainment system, which brings together an 8.0-inch central touchscreen display, six speakers, Bluetooth, DAB, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The Active also comes with navigation, but if you want it on the Titanium, you have to add an option pack that also includes adaptive cruise control. However, the cruise control is actually more of a reason to add the pack than the nav is, because you can just use the smartphone integration to take route directions from your phone.

Touchscreens can often be a pain because they’re often way too overcomplicated, and too tricky to use as a result, especially on the move. The Courier’s isn’t too bad on that score, though. It has all the functionality you want, as mentioned before, but it’s not absolutely crammed with features, so it has a pleasantly simple feel. The graphics look good and are easy to read, the screen transitions are slick, the screen is sensitive, and the various menus are generally pretty easy to find your way around. It’s slightly irritating that the climate control system has to be operated through the screen, but the screen layout with which you do so is well designed and easy to understand, and there’s a shortcut button that takes you to that screen immediately.

Like we’ve said, the Tourneo Courier is mechanically related to the Ford Puma SUV, but it hides it extremely well. Predictably, it’s bigger than its sister car, but not by as much as you might think, because its chunky design makes it look absolutely enormous, both in pictures and in real life. 

The car measures 4,337mm long, 1,817mm tall and 1,791mm wide (not including the door mirrors), and that means it occupies a similar amount of space on the road as a Ford Focus hatchback. However, that upright design means way more interior space.

The front seats have bags of headroom and legroom as front seats always do, but move to the back seats, and you’ll find more headroom than any human being will ever need, and very reasonable legroom that’s generous enough for a six-footer to sit behind a driver of similar proportions without their knees touching the seats in front. Getting into those rear seats is also very simple thanks to the wide-opening sliding rear doors, which are especially handy in tight parking spaces.

Although very roomy, the rear seats aren’t as clever as they are in some rivals. They’re split 60/40 rather than being three individual chairs, and they don’t slide backwards and forwards to allow you to prioritise boot space or passenger space. However, the cabin is wide enough to accommodate three sets of shoulders across the rear bench - often not a given, even in big cars - and the middle seat is comfier than most: it’s softer and less perched up than normal, and there’s very decent foot space in front, too.

As you’d expect with any car derived from a van, the boot is simply huge. You get 570 litres of space underneath the load cover (that’s as much as you get in a BMW 5 Series Touring Estate), and if you keep piling your belongings up on top of that load cover - which you can, because it’s really solid) and load up to the ceiling, you can cram in a whopping 1188 litres of stuff in with the rear seats still in place. Fold those rear seats down and tumble them forward  (which is easy, by the way) to travel in two-seat mode, and you have 2162 litres of loadspace. The sides of the boot also have a number of storage compartments for even more versatility.

An all-electric version of the Tourneo Courier is on its way, but until it arrives, there’s just one engine available, a 1.0-litre Ecoboost turbocharged petrol. It produces 125PS, and can be paired either with a standard six-speed manual gearbox, or with a seven-speed twin-clutch automatic. 

So far, we’ve only tried the former, and in this form, it’s fair to say that the Courier isn’t exactly going to be setting any land speed records. Its official 0-62mph time stands at 13.0 seconds, but even that modest number feels a little generous when you experience how little go there is, either away from the mark or when picking up speed on the move.

This is all entirely forgivable in a car like this, of course, and it’s also pretty inevitable. The teeny engine feels as willing as it does in other Ford products, but it eventually gets overcome by the sheer size and weight of the body it’s trying to haul around. It’s fine when you’re pottering around town and it will keep up with traffic on the motorway, but come up against any sort of meaningful incline, and you’ll need to dial in a downshift or two (or maybe even three if the car is loaded up with people and luggage) to maintain your progress. Thankfully, doing so is a pleasure, because the manual gearbox has a nice, mechanically smooth action.

This is an area in which the Tourneo Courier does an unexpectedly fabulous job. Considering its bluff, upright shape and plentiful glass area, you might expect wind noise to be an issue on the motorway, but not a bit of it. Any flutter you hear stays distant and subdued. The Tourneo Courier’s commercial vehicle roots might also lead you to expect plenty of road- and suspension noise, but again, this is kept well at bay at all speeds.

The engine, too, is sensational on this front. It’s incredibly quiet at low engine speeds, and even when you work it hard - which you often have to - it stays quiet and smooth. Whether you’re cruising at the national motorway speed limit, or working your way up to getting there, this is an incredibly peaceful car to be in.

The Tourneo Courier’s list of standard safety kit includes automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assist, driver attention alert, intelligent speed assist, traffic sign recognition and six airbags. If you’re prepared to pay extra, you can also add option packs that include a blind spot monitor with cross traffic alert, lane centering assist, reverse brake assist, and intelligent active cruise control (with stop and go when specified with the automatic gearbox). 

The options list also contains another feature that’s unusual for a passenger car, and that’s a speed limiter. Many vans are specified with them to help business users comply with various transport laws. The Transit Courier van offers this, and it’s been carried over to the passenger version as well. So, for a few quid extra, you can have your car limited to a top speed of either 56mph, 62mph, 70mph or 75mph. We’re not quite sure why anyone would, but it takes all sorts.

The Ford Tourneo Courier hasn’t been crash-tested by Euro NCAP. The Puma SUV has, and that’s a car with which the Tourneo Courier shares many of its mechanicals. It was awarded four out of five stars in 2022, but to be fair, there’s probably only so much you can read into that. The Ford Transit Courier van has earned the Platinum standard in Euro NCAP commercial vehicle ratings, which is the highest rating possible, but these ratings are more about the provision and effectiveness of active driver assistance systems, rather than crash safety.

It’s very difficult to comment on how reliable this generation of the Tourneo Courier will be, because there’s so little data to call upon. That’s because it sells in such small numbers and hasn’t been around for all that long.

If you’re looking for clues, then the latest HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index does provide some, but you might wish you hadn’t found them. The last-of-the-line Ford Fiesta was rated as the eighth least reliable car in the study, and like the current Puma, that’s a car that shares a platform and plenty of componentry with the Tourneo Courier. As a manufacturer, meanwhile, Ford placed a fairly lowly 23rd out of 29 brands when it came to overall customer satisfaction.

Like with all Fords, the warranty agreement is a very unremarkable three-year, 60,000-mile affair.

Go for a car in Titanium trim, and you’ll pay a group 10 premium if you stick with the manual gearbox, or a group 13 premium if you specify the automatic. Opt for the Active trim, and the manual has a group 11 rating, while the automatic stays steady in group 13. Whatever the case, with ratings like that, insurance premiums on the Courier are very unlikely to bankrupt you.

When the all-electric e-Tourneo Courier arrives later on, you’ll pay zero VED tax on that version, but that’ll only remain the case until April 2025, when electric cars are due to face the same kind of tax burden as all other cars.

Petrol-powered Couriers will be subject to the same flat rate of annual tax as all other petrol and diesel cars, a rate that currently stands at £190 per year. And you won’t have to worry about the luxury car surcharge with the Courier, because that only applies to cars that cost over £40,000 when brand new, and it’s impossible to spend anywhere near that much on a Courier, even if you load it up with every optional extra available. Let’s put it this way: if you do pay that much, you’ve been taken for a proper ride.

The Tourneo Courier is offered in two trim levels, Titanium and Active, and both are pretty well equipped as standard.

Entry-level Titanium cars come with powered windows all round, automatic high beam headlights, automatic wipers, power adjusting door mirrors, heated front seats, heated steering wheel, heated windscreen, climate control, cruise control, front and rear parking sensors, and a reversing camera, and cruise control.

The Active costs a bit more, and all your extra money really gets you is a variety of extra exterior styling goodies to give it a more SUV-like look. That includes stuff like front and rear skid plates, and wheel arch cladding. There are a few other differences, though, and slightly strange ones at that. The climate control is for some reason downgraded to manual air-conditioning, while the infotainment is upgraded to include sat-nav. 

If you want nav on the Titanium, you have to pay extra for an option pack that also includes adaptive cruise control. The latter also includes a stop and go function when specified with the automatic gearbox.