Key considerations
- Available from £15,500
- 2.0-litre petrol, diesel or petrol hybrid, front- or all-wheel drive
- Roomier and better to drive than the gen-one
- Solidly built, stylish, but also very accomplished on or off the road
- SE is probably the best spec
- Not the car to redress LR’s poor rep for unreliability
For diehard Land Rover fans, the arrival of the 2011 Evoque L538 was like having a bucket of ice-cold water sloshed into their faces. Its uber-modern look was about as far away from the traditional concept of an upright Landie as it was possible to imagine.
It was certainly a shock to the system, but it was a credible shock. Underneath that wedgey West End bodywork was a sophisticated front- or all-wheel drive drivetrain, a big range of engines, and a compact chassis that was equally handy on school runs, Alpine switchbacks or slippery forest tracks. On top of that, you had a classy and well-equipped cabin with the SUV must-have high seating position. It was a pukka Land Rover but with lots of creature comforts, and by cleverly badging it as a Range Rover, Jaguar Land Rover could not only call it the lightest and most fuel-efficient Range Rover on sale but also claim a higher overall efficiency score across the RR sub-range.
Sales success was immediate and large and continued as the Evoque was honed and polished. By 2014 an 8-speed automatic gearbox had replaced the 6-speed unit that had been available on the two higher-powered diesels and both the petrols. In 2015 the first 2.2 litre diesel was replaced by a more flexible and more efficient 2.0 Ingenium unit with either 147hp (TD4) or 177hp (SD4) outputs. A 236hp diesel was added to the range in 2017.
Those first Evoques were very appealing cars which quite understandably sold like hot cakes - but as you might expect from anything wearing a Land Rover badge they turned out to be far from perfect as ownership propositions. Haldex pumps failed, emissions control systems played up, door locks didn’t always work off the remote, suspension and trim could become noisy, and the electrics needed close monitoring. As we’ve said so often in these buying guides battery condition was key to glitch-free motoring.
Hope springs eternal in the hearts of LR lovers so there were high expectations for the gen-two L551 follow-up that came out at the end of 2018 and that is the subject of today’s guide. The London launch was a massive celeb- and collab-fest. Bods like Anthony Joshua, Jamie Oliver and Guy Ritchie were rubbing shoulders with younger celebs that those diehard LR fans had never heard of. Limited edition watches, dresses, travel bags and earphones were flying about all over the place.
Underneath all the PR noise the L551 Evoque had a good start in life thanks to a longer wheelbase that brought more back seat knee room, more cabin stowage opportunities and a boot that was 10 per cent bigger than the old car’s. You could bung a folded pram or golf bag in there without the need for any chainsaw work beforehand. All this extra roominess was achieved with no appreciable enlargement in the car’s footprint.
One person’s styling meat is another person’s poison of course and with the disappearance of the three-door ‘coupe’ and convertible versions from the gen-two brochure there was a danger of the new Evoque losing some of the style points that had given the gen-one such a rocket-powered launch in 2010. Fortunately Land Rover defused that by doing a very nice job of sharpening up the five-door that was now the sole gen-two model, giving it smooth new details like pop-out door handles and tying the car in more closely with the Range Rover design language that had been most recently and eloquently expressed by the 2017 Velar.
In spring 2019 new diesels were brought in that passed the RDE2 (Real Driving Emissions Step 2) test brought in for all new cars from January 2020. A 305hp plug-in hybrid P300e model combining a three-cylinder Ingenium 1.5 petrol unit with a 107hp electric motor joined the range in the middle of 2020. For the 2021 model year, there was a model refresh that added more safety tech and JLR’s latest Pivi Pro infotainment system.
Before a late-2023 range rationalisation, there was a madly wide choice not just of trims but also of drivetrains, with 2.0 litre petrols, 2.0 litre diesels with one or two turbochargers plus that electrified 1.5 three-pot clogging up the brochure. We’re not even mentioning the non-electrified P160 that you couldn’t get in the UK. No wonder they trimmed the range: trying to explain it to puzzled buyers must have been a nightmare for dealer sales staff. The ride comfort and the useability and quality of the cabin seemed to go slightly backwards with that 2023 rationalisation so we’re restricting our guide to the 2018-2023 cars. That gen-two launch was nearly six years ago. Now that the sparkle and glitter has been replaced with urban grime and maybe even the odd splash of rural mud, what’s the reality of gen-two Evoque ownership actually like?
SPECIFICATION | Land Rover Range Rover Evoque P300
Engine: 1.997cc turbocharged inline-four petrol mild hybrid 16v
Transmission: 9-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 300@5,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 295@1,500-4,500rpm
0-62mph (secs): 6.8
Top speed (mph): 150
Weight (kg): 1,850
MPG (official combined): 29.3-30.9
CO2 (g/km): 206
Wheels (in): 20
Tyres: 235/50
On sale: 2018 - on
Price new: from £31,600 (£47,875 for P300 SE R-Dynamic)
Price now: from £15,500
Note for reference: car weight and power data is hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.
ENGINE & GEARBOX
As we alluded to earlier, gen-two 2.0 diesels came in D150, D180, D200 and D240 guises, the numbers relating roughly to the horsepower. The 240 was the best all-rounder from that lot, knocking off the 0-62mph run in comfortably under eight seconds but even the 150 kept you moving along nicely enough on the UK’s choked road network. These diesels ran better – or with fewer DPF issues anyway – if you fed them on premium fuel. Your 2.0-litre mild hybrid petrol choices were P200, P250 and P300, plus the P300e plug-in hybrid based on the 1.5 triple. The P300‘s 0-62mph time was in the mid-six-second bracket. No Evoque was especially economical, even the diesels returning fairly unspectacular mpg figures in the high 30s on a run.
The old Ingenium diesel engines gained a pretty awful reputation for unreliability, with particular difficulties in the cam chain and tensioner department. These issues were tackled head-on for the gen-two Evoques so you shouldn’t have any issues there but the turbos could still give problems, generating a bill for up to £2,000. Blue smoke on acceleration and startup were the warning signs for that. Diesel particulate filters and EGR valves were easily clogged up on Evoques used mainly on short journeys around town. AdBlue was used to help control emissions but if you were maintaining that system yourself you had to be careful not to overfill it.
There was a recall for leaky fuel rails on early 2018 2.0 petrol Evoques (and Velars, and Disco Sports) but we think they might have been gen-one cars. Another recall in mid-2021 addressed an incorrectly manufactured fuel return hose assembly on 7,500 Evoques. There was a bigger recall in June ’24 for over 18,000 Evoques whose turbo oil feed pipes had been found to loosen and leak over time.
The P300e hybrid has shown a reluctance to switch over from its IC engine to the electric motor or to stay in electric mode when you might expect it to but as far as we’re aware there hasn’t been a recall for that. There was however a recall in November 2020 for 48v systems that could experience an overload and potential failure of the MOSFET, resulting in a DC converter short-circuit.
The 9-speed ZF automatic gearbox on most models bar the non-UK P160, the 1.5 P300e and the D150 (which had a manual) worked reasonably well with any of the engines but it could be slow to deliver urge when your right foot was frantically demanding it, for example when trying to enter an angry roundabout. The old rotary gear selector that had not covered JLR with glory over the years was replaced on the gen-two by a more useable BMW-like stick.
The start-stop system was good, but some owners experienced overly abrupt downchanges as the car was coming to a halt, followed by a message on the dash telling you to select a gear. Unfortunately, obeying that instruction in that scenario didn’t always result in any forward movement until you turned the car off and on again, not an ideal situation on a road where (say) traffic approaching from behind might be expecting you to move off when you weren’t. LR updates have been put out to try and rectify this.
CHASSIS
The Evoque’s suspension featured a multi-link rear end with a MacPherson Hydrobush front. For those who haven’t kept up, hydrobushes are bushes with hydraulic damping built into them to minimise vibration. The suspension could be a bit nobbly at low speeds but improved at motorway speeds, and the handling was very good by any standards, especially SUV ones. It was chuckable and stable while also managing to be a bit plusher than the gen-one. For more Evoque comfort you might prefer smaller wheels than the 21-inch ones that some higher-spec models ran on. Remarkably, Evoque wheel sizes potentially ranged from 17-inch to 22-inch.
The front-wheel drive D150 was surprisingly capable but you had all-wheel drive on the other models. This could be ordered in one of two flavours: Efficient, which passed power between the front and back wheels, and Active, which also passed it across the axles. A new driveline disconnect system on the gen-two was better at keeping AWD Evoques in the default front-wheel drive mode when cruising.
Torque vectoring by braking was standard but JLR didn’t want you to focus exclusively on the Evoque’s road skills. They wanted you to remember the car’s land-roving credentials too. Central to that was the newest version of Terrain Response 2 which gauged every surface and adjusted the chassis accordingly, either automatically via the Auto setting or manually via the Grass, Gravel & Snow, Mud Ruts or Sand settings. The Hill Descent Control function was excellent and generally superior to similar systems offered by rivals.
Tyre pressure monitoring systems didn’t always work properly, something that had afflicted gen-one Evoques before it popped up again on the gen-twos. 2020 model cars with 18-imch wheels weren’t always alerting you to pressures that had dropped by 25 per cent on the cold inflation figure.
BODYWORK
The pop-up door handles have not gained affection from every owner, with one or more of the doors not locking even though the locking mech seems to have worked with the usual light flash. If the handle needed replacing it had to be bought as one complete unit rather than in parts. Even secondhand on eBay they’re about £100 a go.
Entry-level cars didn’t get the swishly slim LED lights but they all had the full-width light bar which did improve the look of the car from the back. R-Dynamic cars had exterior styling changes to the bonnet and front air intakes, along with different alloy wheel designs. Their approach and departure angles weren’t as forgiving as they were on non R-Dynamic cars.
The maximum wading depth for the new Evoque was up to 600mm from 500mm, an offroad pack adding wading sensors under the door mirrors to tell you how deep the water was. Wonder if those sensors were ever used against owners who had killed their Evoques by going into a 650mm deep pond or river?
A recall was issued in mid-2019 to sort out failing fuses for the front and rear screenwash system. Some of the lacquer has been known to delaminate from the black-painted bodywork, especially in hotter climates. The electrically deployable towbar was a nice extra and the optional pano roof was big enough to flood the cabin with light.
INTERIOR
The overall cabin feel of the gen-two was sleeker and more modern than that of the gen-one, interior materials like eucalyptus wood, wool and recycled plastics racking up a decent haul of sustainability points for the new Evoque. Many of the materials were interestingly ‘different’ too, like the neoprene-ish covering for the dash front. The seats were very comfortable, with good legroom even for tall folk in the back as long as they didn’t want to shove their great big plates of meat under the front seats because there was no room for that.
By way of compensation, there was more than enough headroom in the back now that the coupe body had been dropped. Unlike the front seat occupants who got two USB sockets and a 12v one in the central cubby, those travelling in steerage didn’t get any USB chargers, just one 12v socket. There was a third 12v socket in the boot though, presumably for the dog to use. You couldn’t recline or slide the rear seats as you could in the BMW X1, but the Evoque’s middle seat was vaguely useable thanks to the nearly flat floor. Cabin creaks and rattles were refreshingly absent for all. The car felt solidly built.
On the downside, the dash top and door card tops popularly used as elbow rests were made from a scratchier plastic that you’d normally not like to see above knee level in any car. The door bins weren’t lined, so any of your harder bits and bobs would rattle around in there, and the seat adjuster switches didn’t feel that substantial either.
Entry-level cars had a basic 10-inch touchscreen, front and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, cruise control and automatic emergency city braking. The S got a bigger and faster-working (though still not massively fast) info screen with Wifi hotspot, sat nav, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It also had 10-way electrically adjusted and heated leather seats, traffic sign recognition and an adaptive speed limiter. SEs added LED headlights with high beam assist, a powered tailgate, pulsing indicators, 20-inch alloy wheels, full digital driver’s display and a secondary lower touchscreen for the climate control and heated seats. The SE was arguably the sweet spot the range. HSEs had Meridian sound, 16-way seats, radar cruise and lane-keeping steering. R-Dynamic cars had paddle shifters, aluminium pedals and kick plates and Alcantara headlining.
The infotainment could develop a habit of intermittently cutting all the sound output from just about every feature that was supposed to generate it. It would usually come back after a little rest but it was distracting and potentially very annoying, especially if it was an important phone call you were missing. The upper screens have become known for flickering. Again LR has put out numerous software updates to try and fix this but not with total success in every case.
The lower climate control touchscreen was easier to use than many of the ones that VW had started to install in its vehicles, but not by much. Although it was well out of the way (and almost too low down for easy use) the angle it was set at could make it susceptible to glare.
You could get some cunning gear in the new Evoque’s cabin. If back-seat passengers or other gubbins blocked your (already quite limited) rear view, a switch on the base of the ClearSight Rear View mirror turned it into a video screen and activated a car-top camera to give you a high-def 50-degree field of rear vision. Also available was JLR’s claimed world first, ClearSight Ground View. Using cameras in the grille and on the door mirrors, this put a 180-degree ‘transparent bonnet’ view of what was going on under the front of the car onto the upper screen. Even on blasted British roads we’re not sure how much you’d be using that function in urban environments but it was handy if you ever took your Evoque off the road.
The gen-two Evoque was the first Land Rover with Smart Settings, an AI algorithm-driven system that learnt a driver’s preferences on a range of stuff from seat and steering column positions to music and climate settings, all of which could be prepared for you in advance of your arrival at the car in the best butlerish style via your InControl remote.
Wind, road and engine noise were pleasantly low even in the diesels, with the exception of some light rustling from the large door mirrors. The gen-two was demonstrably superior to the gen-one in this area, but despite the Evoque’s Range Rover appellation you needed to pick your spec carefully (and expensively) if you wanted anything like full-fat RR equipment levels.
That new boot was rated at 591 litres, but when comparing that figure to those of rivals it should be remembered that LR measured its boot spaces to the roof rather than to the parcel shelf, the mark favoured by most other manufacturers. Back seats down, cargo capacity rose to 798 litres.
In March 2019 there was a recall to check and re-retain the fuel sender arm and wiring which had been generating inaccurate fuel level readings. 2020 model year recalls were issued in late 2019 to investigate cold-weather failures in the adhesive bond attaching a metal plate to the headliner; in March ’20 to address an apparent failure to fit a metal plate in some Evoque headliners, possibly reducing head impact protection; in December ’20 for a software error that could cause the speedo and odometer readings to alternate between mph and km/h; in March ’21 for a loose cover on the left-side knee airbag; and in Feb ’22 for incorrectly programmed SRS warning lights..
In December ’22 there was another recall for 2020 cars with Dinamica cloth seats which were found not to have the right degree of burn resistance. Potentially malfunctioning rear seat belt assemblies were also addressed at this time. The emergency eCall system needed an update in early 2020 to put right the incorrect configuration of the eCall phone number.
PH VERDICT
In its first Evoque JLR reckoned, with some justification, that they had created a new motoring segment - i.e. the luxury compact SUV. They talked about its fast roofline and rising waist, phrases which didn’t sound great when applied to middle-aged men but they certainly seemed appropriate for the shapely Evoque.
Designed, engineered and manufactured in Britain (well, along with China, India and Brazil), the gen-two Evoque carried a big weight on its shoulders. In the words of the Beatles song, could it carry that weight a long time – or at least for long enough to establish a better long-term reputation than most of its forebears had managed?
The look hasn’t gone stale yet and nor, apparently, has its appeal. The Evoque has become the most decorated (in terms of awards) Land Rover ever. It makes a lot more sense than bigger Range Rovers on cramped city streets, in car parks, and on single-track rural roads. Unfortunately, as you will have seen from this guide, there have been problems, particularly it would seem on 2020 vehicles, some of which have been bad enough for owners to reject their cars.
Anecdotally Land Rover has been helpful to some owners, though less helpful to others. These issues have depressed used values, especially on high-mileage cars. That could be good news for used buyers, but only if you’re brave and savvy enough to know what you might be getting into. If you’re in that category then a gen-two Evoque could be a brilliant buy because they’re a fine family-capable SUV and a superb drive when all is going well. Plus they look great, some might say a lot greater than a BMW X1, Audi Q3, Volvo XC40 or Mercedes GLA.
The most affordable gen-two Evoque we found on the UK market in August 2024 was a 2020 82,000-mile base model D150 in black at £15,500, which might be a bargain or the very opposite of that depending on the way the wind is blowing. Early gen-two D150s with 30,000 miles typically go for £20,000, which could be seen as a good indication of the fear that mileage puts into the hearts of Evoque buyers.
The cheapest gen-two on PH Classifieds was this 2019 52,000-mile D150 R-Dynamic S at £16,900. Petrols are much rarer than diesels. Here’s a base P200 from 2019 with 41,000 miles and a £19k price tag while £22k bought this R-Dynamic S P250 with 44,000 miles. For more luxury and another couple of grand, you could have this 22,000-mile 2019 P250 R-Dynamic HSE. For more power here’s a 28,000-mile 2019 P300 in R-Dynamic HSE spec, £26,791 to you sir or madam.
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