Range Rover Evoque | Shed of the Week
The original Evoque was a stroke of genius - 15 years later, it makes for a pretty solid shed
Be honest: did you expect to see an Evoque coming in under SOTW’s £2k maximum qualifying price? No, neither did Shed, and yet here it is.
There are three main reasons for this momentous event. The first one is age. Believe it or not, the first-generation L358 Evoque has been around for 15 years now. It still looks fresh today. LR’s celebriddy head of design Curlos McFandango didn’t just come up with a good shape for his 2008 LRX concept, he somehow managed to get the 2011 production car past the LR board with very few visual changes. On a simple age basis though the early ones are old.
The second reason for the Evoque’s descent into shedland is rarity, or the lack of it. 90,000 Evoques were sold in the first year. By 2016 it had become the fastest-selling Land Rover of all time, accounting for one in four of all LR sales. To keep up with demand the Halewood line was running 24 hours a day with a trebled workforce who, in those first five years, scoffed half a million eggs, 125,000 slices of toast and 668,000 cups of coffee – and that was just on the night shifts. It was such a massive hit the Chinese company Landwind couldn’t resist producing their own remarkably similar version which JLR (eventually) got them to stop making. Altogether over 800,000 gen-one Evoques were sold between 2011 and 2018, when the L551 gen-two took over.
With Haldex permanent all-wheel drive, six-mode Terrain Response, 8.5-inch ground clearance, good departure/approach angles and a wading depth of nearly 20 inches the Evoque was a lot more than just a sprauncey catwalk model. Unibody construction featuring an aluminium roof and clamshell bonnet and a composite tailgate kept the weight in the right places for good on-road dynamics and it scored five stars on the Euro NCAP safety test.
The vast majority of gen-one Evoques were diesels, outnumbering the thirsty 2.0 petrol on the UK used market by about thirty to one. The 150hp 16-valve 2.2-litre PSA DW12 motor in our shed was less efficient and less powerful than the 2.0-litre JLR Ingenium engine that came with the Evoque’s 2016MY EU6 facelift, but it was also a lot less unreliable. Given a choice between unreliable power and reliable mobility Shed knows which one he’d choose.
This Evoque is about to pass the 200k mark, but the seller assures us that it ‘drivers faultless’ and Shed has seen enough DW12-engined Freelander 2s bumbling along with a lot more than 200,000 miles on them to believe that this one has plenty more life in it yet. Common problems on the TD4 2.2 include timing chain wear, DPF blockage and EGR valve failure, standard stuff for diesels of that vintage. Oil can leak and turbos can stop turboing, again, not exactly mysteries of the age. The age and mileage of this shed might well work in its favour as most if not all of the common issues will have already happened and been rectified. Of course, they might come around again, but if you’re expecting the worst all the time you’ll never go past your front door.
If nothing major goes wrong with it this should be a cheap car to run. The 6-speed Getrag manual gave the TD4 an official fuel consumption figure of 56mpg, and Shed reckons that its 133g/km emissions rating equates to an annual VED tax bill of £200. Our shed is a Pure, the entry level of the six-model range. LR called the Pure ‘minimalist’ rather than basic, and to be fair the Pure Tech’s spec was more than decent with an 8-inch info screen, sat nav, cruise and trailer assist. The presence of cabin moo and what looks like 19-inch alloys suggests this is a Pure Plus, which means you also get a powered tailgate.
MOT’d, non-Cat Evoques for less than the £2,000 being asked for this one are thin on the ground. Shed did unearth a privately owned red car at the same money and with the same mileage as our green ‘un, but its MOT expired last month and its timing chain had snapped, so obvs check the paperwork if you’re thinking of taking the plunge on any old Evoque.
The third reason for the low price is condition. If you’re a perfectionist, you won’t want this car as it’s got obvious damage to the rear quarter. This sort of thing doesn’t bother Shed. As anyone who has ever used his services will confirm, he’s the opposite of a perfectionist. The door shutlines look fine to him and the rest of the car looks to have been well cared for by its only owner. The MOT mentions one worn brake disc and some underbody rust, but again having lain underneath a few Evoques in his time Shed says it’s usually nothing that a wire brush and some Lanoguard won’t put right. Then, to make yourself feel a lot better, have a quick lie under an old Defender. There’ll be more clearance under there for dubious activities with the postmistress, but you’ll come out looking like Worzel Gummidge and most likely combing corrosion out of your barnet for days.
Just seen the mileage and that might explain it. 200k is a pretty large psychological barrier for most.
Few of my friends wives have had them (one even owning an orange convertible that looked like a skip) and I don’t remember them bemoaning any reliability issues, really.
I’d give one a go, just not in that colour.
Edit to say, it was actually not bad off road. In the interests of science (and without my parents knowledge
), I took their first one down some green lanes, through fords etc. and it ploughed right on through. Snowy hills couldn't stop it either.I do think they've aged well though, and it just shows how fast time flies when you see these in SOTW now I reckon.
We had one when they first came out and it was fab. The design really moved the game along and it felt really premium inside compared to its rivals of the time.
We nearly had a green one like this but changed to red as red seemed rarer on the roads back then and we liked both colours.
Was pretty reliable overall. From memory I think real world mpg was about 30mpg, miles away from those pretend official figures, and the standard seats lacked any form of lumbar support. Apart from that it was a great car, and that stuff wouldn’t really matter for shed money!
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