Citroën C4 2025 review: More than a left-field Golf alternative?
Still French, now a little more fancy
Whatever you think of Citroën, you can’t accuse the brand of doing things by the book. Sure, it went through a pretty meek spell in the 1990s and 2000s, but that was thankfully short-lived. For the most part, the company’s back catalogue comprises pragmatic and practical, yet still decidedly oddball cars such as the fabled 2CV, the tiny Ami city car and the Mehari… thing.
The point is, you can usually depend on Citroën to come out with something a bit different from the norm, and it was true to form with the introduction of the C4 in 2020. Clearly deciding it couldn’t compete with classic family hatchbacks on a level playing field, Citroën craftily decided to blur the lines between genres, creating a raised demi-SUV with a hint of coupé. Whatever you wanted to call it, the C4 was never a conventional family hatch, yet it was typically practical and keenly priced.
The result was pretty good, in a uniquely French kind of way. Majoring on comfort and funkiness suited the Citroën, and while it was never going to achieve that much commercial success against the dull but devastatingly effective VW Golfs, Peugeot 308s and Ford Focuses of this world, it earned our respect.
Now, though, Citroën is hoping to maximise the C4’s left-field charm in a bid to entice more customers away from a dwindling pool of family hatchback mediocrity. All right, dwindling is pushing it, but the fact that the Focus is no longer on sale leaves a pretty big hole in the new car market, and the Golf is no longer as compelling as it once was, so other manufacturers are smelling blood. Hence the radical improvements to the Peugeot 308 and wholesale changes to the Vauxhall Astra we’ve seen in recent years.
So, while the C4 still looks pretty modern five years after its launch, Citroën has revised the car’s styling quite comprehensively for 2025, giving it a completely new nose and a lightly upgraded tail. Taking pride of place is Citroën’s new badge — a retro-inspired logo that’s somehow both more and less simplistic than the old chevron design — but that’s only the start.
There’s a revised two-part grille panel that merges into the fragmented new headlight design. The resultant daytime running light signature looks a bit messy, as though some of the LEDs are broken, but it’s hardly a fashion disaster.
It’s all joined by a new front bumper with two dashes of colour in the lower grille. Apparently, that’s a customisation thing, and though gold strips mark out the top-of-the-range model from the rest, you can specify a different colour to match or contrast the paintwork.
If, for any reason, you wanted to do so. It all seems a bit unnecessary, to be frank, but Citroën has doubtless spent obscene amounts of money developing the clip-in plastic strips on the basis of some focus group’s opinion.
Thankfully, the company still evidently had some money left over to spend elsewhere, so the C4 has an updated rear with more fragmented LED light signatures.
Inside, the French company has fitted a new digital instrument display that’s much larger and sharper-looking than before (when has a car company added a smaller, lower-resolution display to a new car?), while the touchscreen has a new AI voice assistant.
Unfortunately, while the digital instrument display is commendable, the voice assistant is as sluggish and unhelpful as the touchscreen itself, which is irritatingly laggy and often tricky to navigate.
We aren’t that impressed by the C4’s cabin plastics, either, although we have to concede that the way in which they fit together is decent enough. It isn’t exactly premium in there, but this is a well-priced car and you can’t expect Audi quality in something that’s £10,000 cheaper than a mid-range A3.
Yes, you did read that correctly. The C4 costs just over £22,000 in its cheapest form, and even the most expensive hybrid version (the one tested here) comes in at £26,625. That might not sound especially cheap, but in a world where even an entry-level VW Polo supermini costs more than £21,000, a £22,000 family hatchback with two-zone climate control, parking sensors and a touchscreen with Apple CarPlay is pretty good going.
Admittedly, the basic “You!” version is not the one we’d choose. You don’t get the new instrument cluster, and you miss out on navigation, a reversing camera and a few other goodies. But the mid-range Plus, with its 18in alloys, navigation system and bigger instrument display, is remarkable value at £24,735.
Naturally, the pure-electric versions are more expensive, but even the range-topping e-C4 Max only costs £30,150, which puts it roughly on a par with a mid-range MG4, which is impressive given that the MG is from a budget brand owned by a Chinese behemoth.
As before there’s a larger derivative, dubbed the C4 X, which has had all the same upgrades as the car on which it’s based. Essentially a stretched C4 with a saloon boot, the C4 X is designed to offer the “status” of a four-door saloon with the presence of a crossover. It hasn’t gone down brilliantly in the UK, where it’s clearly seen as a bit strange and superfluous, but apparently, it’s a hit in markets such as Turkey.
Perhaps in a bid to boost sales of the less-loved version, Citroën has made the C4 X exactly the same price as the equivalent C4 models, yet it offers a bit more cabin space, with slightly more rear legroom, and a much bigger boot. Where the C4 has almost exactly the same boot space as a Golf, the C4 X’s 500-and-odd-litre luggage space is bigger than that of a BMW 3 Series. In capcity terms, it’s bigger than most of the flats available to rent in London, too.
But because of its saloon shape, the boot of the C4X is also less accessible than that of the regular C4, with a smaller boot aperture that makes it harder to squeeze your aunt’s heirlooms into the luggage space.
Whichever body shape you go for, you get a choice of hybrid or electric power, although the C4’s selection is slightly more expansive than that of the C4 X. Where the larger car makes do with the Hybrid 136 powertrain, plus two electric options, the C4 can be had with a cheaper, less powerful Hybrid 100 option and a 129bhp petrol variant.
If you’re sticking with a C4, though, the basic petrol engine or the Hybrid 136 tested here would be our preferences. The latter is relatively smooth, even if the six-speed automatic gearbox occasionally trips over itself as though it’s wearing mechanical clown shoes. Happily, the 1.2-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine is smooth and makes a pleasant noise even when you thrash it, so the gearbox’s antics aren’t too much of a concern.
More importantly, the Hybrid 136 offers adequate performance and strong fuel economy, claiming well over 50mpg on the official economy test. That’s mainly because while Citroën undersells the system as a “48-volt” arrangement, which makes it sound like a glorified stop-start system, it uses the electric motor more often than expected. Citroën reckons it’ll run on electricity 40 per cent of the time in town, and we suspect that figure isn’t too far wrong. All of which means you can easily top 50mpg on a long run, despite having ample performance and a fairly responsive powertrain.
Obviously, the e-C4 is technically more efficient, with its choice of two different batteries. You can have the older one, with a 50kWh energy capacity, in the You and Plus models, or you can go for the newer 54kWh option in the Max model.
While the two may not sound very different in size, they use different technology and have different motors (a 134bhp motor for the 50kWh version and a 153bhp motor in the 54kWh variant), so there’s a fair difference in how far they can go on a charge. Where official figures suggest the smaller battery will take you up to 232 miles between charges, the larger battery increases that to 271 miles (as always, expect less for both in the real world, especially in cold weather).
Yet the e-C4 isn’t as composed as the hybrid C4 on the road, offering a less engaging and less stable driving experience in pretty much every way. The electric car doesn’t feel as light on its feet, and there’s a kind of squishiness to the brakes, while the e-C4 also rolls more in corners and rides less convincingly.
Citroën has put a lot of emphasis on the C4 and e-C4 ride quality, fitting every model with its so-called Advanced Comfort Suspension with double hydraulic stops at the front and single stops at the rear. That means it’s supposed to cushion the impacts more ably, reducing the jolting from potholes and speed bumps.
It works to an extent — the C4 Hybrid is pretty comfortable on the motorway — but it’s less convincing around town, where badly broken surfaces catch it out and some bumps seem to overwhelm the suspension. Yet the Hybrid is miles better than the e-C4, which jiggles about on its springs.
Weirdly, however, our experience with the C4 X and its electric variant was wildly different. Where the C4 Hybrid is the better of the two smaller cars, the C4 X Hybrid is dramatically inferior to its electric sibling. Not only is the e-C4 X more comfortable than the hybrid (although neither car rides as well as the C4 Hybrid), but the brakes are more consistent, the body control is better and it feels more cohesive all over.
So, if you’re settled on a petrol-powered Citroën, have the standard C4, and if you’re choosing an electric car, the e-C4 X is the better choice – even if we’d like to see a longer-range option.
We’d still opt for the regular C4, though, which feels like a much more rounded and composed car in pretty much every way. Its quirkiness means it’s unlikely to steal many customers away from the dependably monochrome VW Golf, but as a wacky alternative for those who want to be a bit different, it’s worth considering.
Related articles
- After reading our review of the updated Citroën C4, you might like to read our review of the Citroën C3 as well
- Also take a look at the forthcoming Citroën C3 Aircross which gets electric power and up to seven seats
- And take a look at the four ways in which the car industry can introduce affordable electric cars, according to Citroën’s boss in an exclusive chat with Driving.co.uk
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