New Ford Tourneo Courier review

The MPV is dead – long live the SUV? Well, not exactly, because this Ford Tourneo Courier and rival people carriers still offer plenty of appeal.

It's easy to see why. After all, the best MPVs are practical and easy to drive, while offering low running costs and no-frills packaging.

Size-wise, the Tourneo Courier sits below the larger Ford Tourneo Connect and Ford Tourneo Custom in Ford's MPV range. However, unlike the Connect and Custom, it's based on a car – the Ford Puma – rather than a van. That's a great place to start, because the Puma is one of the best-driving small SUVs you can buy.

So is the Ford Tourneo Courier's combination of fun driving dynamics and boxy MPV practicality a winning formula? Or would you be better off with, say, a Citroën Berlingo or Dacia Jogger? Read on to find out...

There’s only one engine available in the Ford Tourneo Courier, and it’s a 123bhp 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol engine. You can have it with either a seven-speed automatic gearbox or a six-speed manual.

It’s not the most potent engine and once the turbo kicks in at around 2,000rpm it pulls reasonably well. In fact it’s quite flexible once you’re in the upper rev range, so you don’t have to change down too often. So far we’ve driven the version with the manual gearbox, which has a precise and easy shift action.

The Tourneo Courier picks up road surface imperfections quite readily, especially if they’re sharp. On a poor town road the constant thumping can prove somewhat grating, but on better open roads with gentler undulations, it copes rather better and feels generally quite comfortable.

Body lean is kept in check well for such a tall car, and this, along with grippy handling and accurate steering, makes the Tourneo Courier good fun to drive. The small, lightweight engine over the front end means it’s eager to turn into corners, giving it a fun, darty feel.

The steering is pretty accurate and light at low speeds, and it builds up weight as you go faster. Some drivers will still find it too light, and there's an unnatural self-centring action to it.

Wind and road noise are noticeable at speed but it’s not loud enough to cause too much of a disturbance.

The driving position in the Ford Tourneo Courier is fundamentally good. The seat and steering wheel offer plenty of adjustment, plus the pedals and gear lever are well positioned. The driver gets a fold-down armrest.

Visibility isn't great considering the car’s boxy shape and big windows, with a large blind-spot between the door mirrors and windscreen pillars. The kink in the rear window and wide rear pillars combine to create a blind-spot as you look backwards. On the plus side, the expansive windscreen gives you a good view directly forwards, and the big door mirrors help with manoeuvrability.

Every Tourneo Courier has an infotainment touchscreen but the screen is quite small, at 8in, so the icons are small too, making them tricky to tap when you're driving. When you do hit an icon on the touchscreen, it responds quite quickly, plus there's a row of shortcut buttons below the screen for some functions.

Unfortunately, the climate settings are controlled through the touchscreen, rather than with physical knobs or buttons, so they're less user-friendly than they could be.

There's an 8in digital driver's display operated using buttons on the steering wheel. In terms of functionality it’s pretty basic, but it’s clear and relatively straightforward to use, and can be configured to show driver assistance functions and trip information.

The Tourneo Courier's interior is filled with hard scratchy plastics. They are at least durable and easy to clean, plus the build quality is good, with a solid thunk as you close the doors.

Head room in the Ford Tourneo Courier is seriously impressive. It seems to just keep going and going, and even the tallest of drivers won’t feel claustrophobic in either the front or rear seats.

Rear leg room is pretty good too, although long-legged passengers could find their knees brushing against the front seats. With only a minimal floor hump beneath the centre seat, an adult in the rear centre seat also has plenty of space for their feet. Usefully, the Tourneo Courier has sliding rear doors, which makes it very easy to get in and out in tight parking spaces, for example.

The Tourneo Courier has a deceptively large boot with 570 litres of space. That's on par with some family SUVs – including the Kia Sportage – but because of the car’s tall, boxy shape, there’s a huge amount of height for you to stack your luggage from floor to ceiling. The boot lid is very large, so you have to be careful when opening it in a car park. For context, the Citroën Berlingo and Dacia Jogger have bigger boots, offering 675 litres and 712 litres respectively.

If you want more space, you can fold down and flip the seats forwards to create 2,162 litres of space. However, the rear bench is split 60/40, whereas the Berlingo has a more useful 40/20/40 configuration.

There’s no option of third-row seats on the Tourneo Courier. If you need to seat more than five people see our best seven-seaters page.

Despite being one of the more compact MPVs, the Ford Tourneo Courier is more expensive than a Citroën Berlingo or Dacia Jogger. However, it is more affordable than a Peugeot Rifter.

Standard equipment is plentiful, with the entry-level Titanium trim offering a six-way adjustable driver’s seat, automatic windscreen wipers, power-folding and heated door mirrors, a heated windscreen, heated front seats, a heated steering wheel and a faux-leather steering wheel as standard.

Active trim adds unique styling details, such as a honeycomb grille and plastic wheel-arch cladding, as well as built-in sat-nav and a cargo net for the boot. All versions come with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay smartphone mirroring.

Fuel economy is decent, but not outstanding. Official average fuel economy for the petrol version with the manual gearbox is 42.2mpg, and CO2 emissions are rated at 152g/km. The automatic version is slightly less efficient, returning 40.9mpg and emitting 156g/km. 

No matter which version of the Tourneo Courier you choose, the 1.0-litre Jogger is more efficient, returning an average figure of 48.7mpg officially.

If you’re a company car driver, you might want to consider the electric car version, the e-Tourneo Courier, for its much lower BIK rating.

When it comes to standard safety kit, Titanium trim is quite sparsely equipped, so you’ll have to specify the optional Driver Assistance pack if you want features such as adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert and a reversing camera. Active trim comes with the pack fitted as standard.

The latest Tourneo Courier is too new to have featured in our 2023 What Car? Reliability Survey but Ford as a brand finished in 17th place out of 32 brands overall. For context, Citroën finished in 14th place, Peugeot in 21st place and Vauxhall in 30th place.

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