Comfortably numb – The seats rate highly in the Relay
This latest round of upgrades came at the back end of last year and involves a snazzy new front end, improvements to the build quality and a few technological tweaks to the engines. Under the metal a few changes sharpen up the Relay’s capabilities and promise to raise body rigidity, improve durability and lower noise levels. Meanwhile some of the high stress areas such as sliding side doors have been beefed up to improve their longevity.
Our test model is the smallest Relay in base format, weighting in at 3.0 tonnes gvw and offering eight cubic metres of loadspace and 1,155kg of payload. The engine is the lowest-powered 110bhp version, so at £20,255 ex-VAT this is about as basic as it gets with this range.
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- We’ve eulogised enough about the van’s looks, so let’s turn to safety. Electronic stability control (ESC), which helps alleviate sideways skids, has been made a legal requirement on all vans since October 2014, so the Relay now gets this wonderful little life-saver as standard. It was always one of our big gripes that Citroen steadfastly left ESC on the options list until the last minute.
- What an amazing driver’s seat! We just happened to undertake a 400-mile journey in one day during our test week and my partner and I hopped out at the other end with a grin on our faces and a hop, skip and jump down the road (steady on – ed). OK perhaps that’s rather overstating things but suffice to say, the seats are fantastically supportive and comfortable.
- Another classic gripe of mine was that the Relay didn’t have a coffee cup holder, apart from one in the little desk that pulls down from the back of the middle seat. To use it, you had to bend round like a contortionist. There is now thankfully a cup holder on the dash, although it’s still quite a reach to get to it.
- Both ride and handling qualities in the Relay are excellent. There’s a nice slick gearchange, power steering has plenty of feel for what’s going on between wheel and road and this van will tackle corners with gusto, never leaving the driver with any worrying moments.
- Official fuel economy figure on the combined cycle is a creditable 41.5mpg – pretty amazing for a van of this size. Of course, as we always point out, the figures are calibrated on a rolling road so you are highly unlikely to achieve them in real life. Mind you, we reckon the Relay is good for a figure in the mid-thirties unless you happen to cane it to death or carry lumps of concrete up and down Ben Nevis for a living (which is highly unlikely to be honest).
- Most Citroens feature a natty Teletrac sat-nav and stolen tracker unit free and the Relay is no exception. It’s a brilliant little unit, not one of those cheap Halfords jobs. You can even talk through the device to a very nice lady at Teletrac HQ in Oxfordshire, who will help out with various dilemmas from having a crash to finding the nearest curry house. Isn’t technology amazing?
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