Range Rover Evoque Si4 Prestige
Discussion
Sorry, I couldn't think of a snappier title.
As I've just washed it, and booked it in to have its winter tyres swapped for the summer versions I thought it was about time I put up a thread as we've had the car since early October.
When we first moved to Switzerland I decided to be sensible with cars, and ended up buying a new Renault Koleos diesel auto, with a massive discount and 0% interest leasing. On paper it did everything we needed, spacious, reasonable to drive, 4x4, lots of toys like BOSE stereo, nav, heated seats etc but inevitably I got bored of driving a domestic appliance and decided it needed to go.
Requirements were that it needed to be a 4x4, and something that I actually wanted to own, and that was about it. Initially I wanted an X5 (you can drive them here without everyone thinking you're a pillock), an RRS or a Cayenne but punitave annual tax on anything over 3.0 ruled out the petrol versions of the latter two, and my wife thought the X5 was too dull. She wanted a Mini Countryman, and a brand new Cooper S auto with some toys was within budget, but it was just too small as our only car.
A trip to the local Land Rover dealer followed, where we were told we could scrape into a new Pure spec Evoque with the TD4 engine and a manual box, but they had a couple of used ones coming in which would be a much better bet. Three weeks later the Renault was sold (lost about £2k so not too unbearable)and a deal was done on the Evoque you see below. One owner, under 19k miles, just under three years old and in top spec with heated electric leather, Meridien stereo, self park, pano roof etc. We've done 8k km, including me driving it solo to the UK and back for Christmas which it was perfect for. MPG is about 26 on average which isn't bad as most of its use is town driving and short trips, the added bonus is that if I set the display to KPH then the MPG readout is in litres per 100km so I have no idea how much fuel it is actually using in real terms! As it's the lesser spotted petrol version it has the 240 bhp engine from the Focus ST so is perfectly fast enough in the real world.
So, pics below, sorry for my reflection in the rear view mirror... The interior is a bit Marmite, I really like it, and I believe in the UK it was called 'Couture' which is a suitably daft name. It's cream leather but with a wine red dash top, steering wheel and carpets. The dash is all trimmed in leather and makes it a really nice place to be, to me it feels like it's from a class above the likes of the X3, Q5 and so on, in spite of the fact it's down two cylinders.
As I've just washed it, and booked it in to have its winter tyres swapped for the summer versions I thought it was about time I put up a thread as we've had the car since early October.
When we first moved to Switzerland I decided to be sensible with cars, and ended up buying a new Renault Koleos diesel auto, with a massive discount and 0% interest leasing. On paper it did everything we needed, spacious, reasonable to drive, 4x4, lots of toys like BOSE stereo, nav, heated seats etc but inevitably I got bored of driving a domestic appliance and decided it needed to go.
Requirements were that it needed to be a 4x4, and something that I actually wanted to own, and that was about it. Initially I wanted an X5 (you can drive them here without everyone thinking you're a pillock), an RRS or a Cayenne but punitave annual tax on anything over 3.0 ruled out the petrol versions of the latter two, and my wife thought the X5 was too dull. She wanted a Mini Countryman, and a brand new Cooper S auto with some toys was within budget, but it was just too small as our only car.
A trip to the local Land Rover dealer followed, where we were told we could scrape into a new Pure spec Evoque with the TD4 engine and a manual box, but they had a couple of used ones coming in which would be a much better bet. Three weeks later the Renault was sold (lost about £2k so not too unbearable)and a deal was done on the Evoque you see below. One owner, under 19k miles, just under three years old and in top spec with heated electric leather, Meridien stereo, self park, pano roof etc. We've done 8k km, including me driving it solo to the UK and back for Christmas which it was perfect for. MPG is about 26 on average which isn't bad as most of its use is town driving and short trips, the added bonus is that if I set the display to KPH then the MPG readout is in litres per 100km so I have no idea how much fuel it is actually using in real terms! As it's the lesser spotted petrol version it has the 240 bhp engine from the Focus ST so is perfectly fast enough in the real world.
So, pics below, sorry for my reflection in the rear view mirror... The interior is a bit Marmite, I really like it, and I believe in the UK it was called 'Couture' which is a suitably daft name. It's cream leather but with a wine red dash top, steering wheel and carpets. The dash is all trimmed in leather and makes it a really nice place to be, to me it feels like it's from a class above the likes of the X3, Q5 and so on, in spite of the fact it's down two cylinders.
I don't think we'd have chosen white had we ordered new, but they're all white or black here so choice is limited. To be honest this was the cheapest one in the country so colour wasn't a massive concern. In fact the only one close in price was silver with black, which I certainly wouldn't pick (it's not an Audi)!
Gdgd said:
Looks great - do like these.
You've captured yourself a cracker in the rear mirror btw
Yup, certainly have. At least most of my ugly mug is hidden by an iPhone and a pair of Oakleys!You've captured yourself a cracker in the rear mirror btw
I love the car, I've had 30+ cars in the 15 or so years I've been driving, and this is one of two which after six months of ownership I don't feel like changing, the other was an S1 Elise. It's fast, super comfortable, has every extra I should want and is capable of driving from Brighton to Zürich in terrible weather in 11 hours door to door without leaving me feeling half dead at the end of the trip.
A quick update, we've had the car just over a year now, and it's just been booked in for its (free) service at Land Rover Zürich. I'm going to extend the warranty and servicing pack for another 12 months as the warranty bit effectively costs about £350 and I'm fractionally terrified of the gearbox grenading itself.
Mileage is up to 42k KM (12.5k KM in the year we've had it so I'm happy I bought the petrol one) and an average of about 26mpg in UK speak.
I still haven't bought a roof-rack but with the ski season coming I'm going to have to get one - the lack of a ski hatch is a bit oversight for an SUV and it's annoying having to fold the seats (and remove the baby seat) if you're more than two up with kit in the car.
Time to put the winter tyres on it too, but I'll wait until after the weekend trip to Stuttgart as it's so much quieter and nicer to drive on the summer ones. I am looking forward to putting its winter capabilities to full use again though (pic from last year, obviously).
Mileage is up to 42k KM (12.5k KM in the year we've had it so I'm happy I bought the petrol one) and an average of about 26mpg in UK speak.
I still haven't bought a roof-rack but with the ski season coming I'm going to have to get one - the lack of a ski hatch is a bit oversight for an SUV and it's annoying having to fold the seats (and remove the baby seat) if you're more than two up with kit in the car.
Time to put the winter tyres on it too, but I'll wait until after the weekend trip to Stuttgart as it's so much quieter and nicer to drive on the summer ones. I am looking forward to putting its winter capabilities to full use again though (pic from last year, obviously).
Croatia, about 12 hours further down). See lots of Swiss cars here.Ah, a lovely part of the world I'm told, we must head down there in the summer. I bet you do see lots of Swiss cars there, a big chunk of the population in CH is of Yugoslav descent, I was just chatting to a colleague who is heading down there for a holiday soon. Flying isn't practical and is super-expensive so everyone drives there.
Just back from a weekend visiting friends in Germany, having done the 191km from Karlsruhe to the Swiss border in 72 minutes with a sleeping toddler in the back and holding a conversation at just above whisper the whole time. The refinement is impressive for a 2 ton SUV with a 4 pot engine and pretty humble underpinnings. Acceleration from 150-180kph is surprising too.
The annual trip back to the UK went well, I took the 'par col' route through the Vosges on the way back which was surprisingly good fun, although the winter Pirelli tyres aren't at their best when it's damp and 13 degrees.
The comedy enormous wing mirrors are great for getting a good view back down a Eurotunnel train. The width of the car isn't so much fun though, it's really quite tight and almost impossible not to bump a wheel on the walkway when passing the toilet/stairs block during loading.
It's nice of the sat nav to tell you when you cross a border with a little flag, I managed Brighton to Zürich in 10.5 hours door to door (including the crossing and a few short stops en route) which I was pretty pleased with, and with petrol around 90p per litre here the 26mpg wasn't too painful either. I used just over one-and-a-half tanks each way, so when you add in the tolls and the crossing it means driving cost ten times as much as flying, and took almost exactly ten times as long too
The comedy enormous wing mirrors are great for getting a good view back down a Eurotunnel train. The width of the car isn't so much fun though, it's really quite tight and almost impossible not to bump a wheel on the walkway when passing the toilet/stairs block during loading.
It's nice of the sat nav to tell you when you cross a border with a little flag, I managed Brighton to Zürich in 10.5 hours door to door (including the crossing and a few short stops en route) which I was pretty pleased with, and with petrol around 90p per litre here the 26mpg wasn't too painful either. I used just over one-and-a-half tanks each way, so when you add in the tolls and the crossing it means driving cost ten times as much as flying, and took almost exactly ten times as long too
This may be the least interesting and commented thread in Readers Cars history, but I'm going to update it anyway
The longer I have the car the more I think the fuel economy is a bit poor, I can live with it, but 24-26 MPG for a car which isn't exactly massive isn't great. I renewed the warranty and service pack for another year, mostly for peace of mind, so it's covered until early November now and the next service is already paid for. Touch wood nothing had fallen off or broken with the exception of one of the 12v sockets not working which was fixed at the last service.
One of the benefits of living in mainland Europe is that the scope for an impromptu trip to somewhere interesting is endless. It was a public holiday weekend, and the weather in Zürich was miserable, so what do you do? Book a hotel in Nice, and head to the Monaco Historic GP of course! Other than a two hour delay to get through the Gothard tunnel it was uneventful, and I can highly recommend the Historic if you want to see 'racing' in Monaco and not be bankrupt at the end of the day.
The next trip was to the Etape du Tour in Morzine. For those not well versed in what Lyrca Louts choose to do in the summer, this involves riding a mountain stage of the Tour de France on closed roads along with 15,999 other masochists/idiots who can't handle a bike. Again, we filled the car up with stuff and headed off in an uneventful way. I may or may not have done the event on the pictured bike.
I put two new winter tyres on in November, as a couple of the Pirellis which were supplied when the car was new were getting a bit too thin for Alpine show, apparently these five year old winters with 3mm left will be sold as part-worns in the UK or Italy
I went for a pair of Falken Eurowinter HS449 which I thought were pretty reasonable at 290 CHF delivered (from Germany) considering they're 235/55 R19 size. They do seem quieter than the Pirellis too but that might just be placebo effect.
The car has continued to perform admirably in whatever conditions it finds itself in, on a ski trip last week I really noticed the benefits of 4x4 - where the FWD cars were struggling to get up a hill I could drive round them, do a three point turn, then go back and check my friend in a rented A Class was able to get out of trouble
It's also a comfy place to sit on a Channel Tunnel train and watch a bit of TV.
Occasionally my thoughts turn to replacing it but I'm not sure what with. I had an order in for a Skoda Kodiaq but cancelled it as I wanted a test drive first and it's good chunk bigger which isn't ideal with underground car parks. I think we probably will buy one eventually, but I'll hold off until the summer in the hope that the Volvo XC90 with a petrol engine drops into budget (or I get a pay rise and can get a Macan S for me and a Mini for my wife...)
The longer I have the car the more I think the fuel economy is a bit poor, I can live with it, but 24-26 MPG for a car which isn't exactly massive isn't great. I renewed the warranty and service pack for another year, mostly for peace of mind, so it's covered until early November now and the next service is already paid for. Touch wood nothing had fallen off or broken with the exception of one of the 12v sockets not working which was fixed at the last service.
One of the benefits of living in mainland Europe is that the scope for an impromptu trip to somewhere interesting is endless. It was a public holiday weekend, and the weather in Zürich was miserable, so what do you do? Book a hotel in Nice, and head to the Monaco Historic GP of course! Other than a two hour delay to get through the Gothard tunnel it was uneventful, and I can highly recommend the Historic if you want to see 'racing' in Monaco and not be bankrupt at the end of the day.
The next trip was to the Etape du Tour in Morzine. For those not well versed in what Lyrca Louts choose to do in the summer, this involves riding a mountain stage of the Tour de France on closed roads along with 15,999 other masochists/idiots who can't handle a bike. Again, we filled the car up with stuff and headed off in an uneventful way. I may or may not have done the event on the pictured bike.
I put two new winter tyres on in November, as a couple of the Pirellis which were supplied when the car was new were getting a bit too thin for Alpine show, apparently these five year old winters with 3mm left will be sold as part-worns in the UK or Italy
I went for a pair of Falken Eurowinter HS449 which I thought were pretty reasonable at 290 CHF delivered (from Germany) considering they're 235/55 R19 size. They do seem quieter than the Pirellis too but that might just be placebo effect. The car has continued to perform admirably in whatever conditions it finds itself in, on a ski trip last week I really noticed the benefits of 4x4 - where the FWD cars were struggling to get up a hill I could drive round them, do a three point turn, then go back and check my friend in a rented A Class was able to get out of trouble
It's also a comfy place to sit on a Channel Tunnel train and watch a bit of TV.
Occasionally my thoughts turn to replacing it but I'm not sure what with. I had an order in for a Skoda Kodiaq but cancelled it as I wanted a test drive first and it's good chunk bigger which isn't ideal with underground car parks. I think we probably will buy one eventually, but I'll hold off until the summer in the hope that the Volvo XC90 with a petrol engine drops into budget (or I get a pay rise and can get a Macan S for me and a Mini for my wife...)
jamiebae said:
I used just over one-and-a-half tanks each way, so when you add in the tolls and the crossing it means driving cost ten times as much as flying, and took almost exactly ten times as long too
Likely 10 times as enjoyable though! Good choice of car, especially having dodged a Countryman!
kapiteinlangzaam said:
The new XC60 must be in with a shout, too...?
Possibly, it does look nice but I think we want 7 seats this time round unless we get a second car - with two kids and family visiting it's difficult when we want to go anywhere. I like the look of the new Tiguan Allspace but the Kodiaq probably makes more sense as it's the same car but cheaper and I prefer the interior of the Skoda.It's difficult to find one car which does everything and doesn't cost a fortune, depreciate at the speed of light and is available with 4x4, and auto box and a petrol engine at the same time. Add in seven seats and the only options are the Kodiaq, BMW 2 series or Discovery Sport, even with 5 seats the choice is limited (you can add in the Seat Ateca, Audi Q5 and some more 'normal' estates like the A4 or 3 series). With the X-Trail, Qashqai, Kadjar and S-Max 4x4 is diesel only and none of the new Peugeots (3008 or 5008) have 4x4 at all in spite of looking like they should.
kapiteinlangzaam said:
If you can sacrifice seat 6+7, the new MINI Countryman fits all the other requirements in CooperS ALL4 trim, as well as pleasing the boss with here desire to have a MINI!
I actually bought a Countryman at Christmas (I say bought, it's for my Mum, and she paid for it) - a massive discount on the last of the old model and happened to find the right spec and colour as the showroom car at the local dealer. My wife is very jealous as you can imagine, and if I gave her a blank cheque to buy a car she'd be straight off to the Mini garage to buy one. I haven't looked at the new one yet but the boot in the old model is too small - in a terribly middle-class-British-ex-pat way the boot needs to fit a sledge and three people's worth of ski boots, poles and clothing and the Mini just can't manage it. I'll look at the new one soon though, and if we go for the two-car option it's certainly on the list.I'm another 140 CHF poorer having swapped the tyres over again, with hindsight I should have just bitten the bullet and bought a set of 19" rims when I bought the car as I'd be able to swap them myself and I'm already in for over 700 CHF on tyre swaps since I bought the car. Lesson learned, the next car will have a full set of winter wheels and tyres.
We're just back from another trip to Monaco, this time for the Formula E race. I managed the return leg of 575km on a single tank of petrol and across the whole round trip achieved a reasonably impressive 29.5 MPG, no doubt helped by being back on summer tyres. I guess it's the town driving which the car spends most of its life doing which drags the average down.
It does definitely need to be replaced though, with two kids and frequent family visitors it's simply too small so I'm back to looking at Disco Sports or Kodiaqs with a view to changing it towards the end of the summer. It's a shame as the car is so competent and perfect for what we need other than the lack of space, driving around town or long road trips across Europe can both be done in total comfort, in stark contrast to the Renault Koleos we had before which was too noisy on the motorway and too diesely in town.
A couple of pics of the latest trip - Monaco looking great in the sunshine
A pretty good view from an Italian motorway stop, one of many to feed or change the baby...
We're just back from another trip to Monaco, this time for the Formula E race. I managed the return leg of 575km on a single tank of petrol and across the whole round trip achieved a reasonably impressive 29.5 MPG, no doubt helped by being back on summer tyres. I guess it's the town driving which the car spends most of its life doing which drags the average down.
It does definitely need to be replaced though, with two kids and frequent family visitors it's simply too small so I'm back to looking at Disco Sports or Kodiaqs with a view to changing it towards the end of the summer. It's a shame as the car is so competent and perfect for what we need other than the lack of space, driving around town or long road trips across Europe can both be done in total comfort, in stark contrast to the Renault Koleos we had before which was too noisy on the motorway and too diesely in town.
A couple of pics of the latest trip - Monaco looking great in the sunshine
A pretty good view from an Italian motorway stop, one of many to feed or change the baby...
Our time with the Evoque is coming to a close, it's now up for sale and the replacement should arrive next week.
We've had it almost exactly three years and covered 42k KM, it's been to France, Italy, Austria the UK and Liechtenstein (multiple times to all of them) as well as serving as a city runaround. It has dealt happily with 1,000km days in the driving seat, blizzards on ski trip, 190kph on German Autobahns, and running the gauntlet of refugees on a Calais motorway with equal aplomb and other than a non-functioning 12v socket (not a big issue as it has several) we've had no issues with the car. It's been serviced once a year, free of charge, and I've had to buy two winter tyres in the time we've owned it so the costs have been minimal.
What's not so good? Well the fuel economy isn't brilliant, but talking to friends who have the diesel version it's not too bad, on a run it'll touch 30mpg and in normal use it's 26-28 which I don't think is too bad for a 240bhp SUV. The boot is small considering the footprint of the car but the trade-off is that the back seats are more spacious and comfortable than other similar cars I've been in.
So, there we go, I think given the chance I would buy the same car again happily - it has been comfortable, reliable, nice to drive and a perfect car for the type of driving we do.
As Photobucket has probably destroyed all the other pics, here's one of it having a drink in Austria a couple of weeks ago.
We've had it almost exactly three years and covered 42k KM, it's been to France, Italy, Austria the UK and Liechtenstein (multiple times to all of them) as well as serving as a city runaround. It has dealt happily with 1,000km days in the driving seat, blizzards on ski trip, 190kph on German Autobahns, and running the gauntlet of refugees on a Calais motorway with equal aplomb and other than a non-functioning 12v socket (not a big issue as it has several) we've had no issues with the car. It's been serviced once a year, free of charge, and I've had to buy two winter tyres in the time we've owned it so the costs have been minimal.
What's not so good? Well the fuel economy isn't brilliant, but talking to friends who have the diesel version it's not too bad, on a run it'll touch 30mpg and in normal use it's 26-28 which I don't think is too bad for a 240bhp SUV. The boot is small considering the footprint of the car but the trade-off is that the back seats are more spacious and comfortable than other similar cars I've been in.
So, there we go, I think given the chance I would buy the same car again happily - it has been comfortable, reliable, nice to drive and a perfect car for the type of driving we do.
As Photobucket has probably destroyed all the other pics, here's one of it having a drink in Austria a couple of weeks ago.
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