One Family, Three Very Different Animals

The P250 is the pick of the range for anyone who wants a bit of character with their commute. Two litres, four cylinders, a turbocharger doing serious work, and 250 horsepower on tap. Land Rover's Ingenium petrol is a genuinely modern engine, but modern tightly engineered units have specific failure modes, and this one is no exception.

Timing chain wear is the one that keeps coming up on higher mileage P250s. Listen for a rattle on cold start, especially first thing in the morning. If you hear it, don't ignore it hoping it will go away. It won't, and the longer you leave it the more expensive the repair becomes. Related to this, watch for oil leaks around the timing cover and at the rear crank seal area. These engines can also seep coolant in ways that don't immediately announce themselves with a temperature warning, so keep an eye on the reservoir level between services.

The carbon build up issue is something almost every direct injection petrol engine deals with, and the P250 is no different. Because fuel is injected directly into the cylinder rather than over the intake valves, there is nothing to wash away the oily deposits that accumulate over time. The result is rough running, hesitation and a gradual loss of power. An intake decarbon clean sorts it and is well worth doing at higher mileages.

On the electrical side, Evoques generally have more going on in the module network than most people realise. Infotainment niggles, module communication faults and the occasional ghost warning light are all part of life with this car. A generic scan tool just isn't going to cut it here. We diagnose P250s using the factory Land Rover platform with SDD and Pathfinder, the same tooling the Land Rover network uses, which means we can read every module, run guided routines and clear faults properly rather than just resetting warning lights and hoping for the best.

The D165 sits above the D150 in the diesel range, squeezing 165 horsepower from the same Ingenium 2.0 diesel block. It's the diesel most buyers who wanted a bit more pull opted for, and on paper it makes sense. In practice, the higher output comes with the same fundamental engine architecture, which means the same core fault patterns apply, just with slightly different tuning pressures involved.

Timing chain rattle on cold start is just as relevant here as it is on the D150. The Ingenium diesel's chain and tensioner setup is a known concern across the family, and the D165 hasn't escaped that. If you're buying one used, a cold start listen before purchasing is non negotiable.

The D165's emissions system is a full suite: EGR, DPF and SCR with AdBlue dosing. That means more components that can cause grief, particularly on cars that do a lot of short urban trips where the DPF never gets a proper regeneration cycle. Interrupted regens lead to oil dilution, and oil dilution is quietly destructive to the engine internals over time. If your D165 has been doing school runs and supermarket trips more than motorway kilometres, it's worth having the DPF status checked.

AdBlue and NOx sensor faults on D165s tend to arrive with warning lights that owners sometimes dismiss as minor. They're not. Left unchecked, an AdBlue fault will eventually put the car into a limited start cycle. We sort these properly with genuine parts and correct counter resets using SDD and Pathfinder, not guesswork.

Compared to the P250, the D165 is the better motorway car and the more economical choice for genuine long distance driving. Compared to the D150, it's the stronger performer. Where it loses is complexity: the full emissions suite means more things that can go wrong, and more expense when they do. That's not a reason to avoid it, it's a reason to stay on top of the servicing.

The D150 is where most buyers started with the diesel Evoque. One hundred and fifty horsepower and 380 Nm of torque from a 2.0 litre 204DTD diesel, managed by a Bosch EDC17CP55 ECU. It's not a fire breather, but it's a composed, capable engine that suits the Evoque's character well, particularly in urban traffic where torque matters more than peak power.

The bad news is that an Evoque doing Auckland urban work is living exactly the duty cycle that's hardest on the 204DTD. Short trips mean cold running, DPFs that never fully regenerate, EGR systems clogging with soot, and oil that gradually gets diluted by unburned fuel. None of this is catastrophic on its own, but let it accumulate and you end up with a bill that could have been avoided with more regular attention.

Timing chain wear is present here too, just as it is on the D165 and P250. The 204DTD's chain is well documented as a component to watch, and we see plenty of D150s come in where the chain has been left to stretch well past the point where it should have been replaced. A chain replacement is not a cheap job, but it's dramatically cheaper than the damage an unaddressed chain failure causes.

Relative to the D165, the D150 is the simpler, cheaper car to run when it's healthy. The same core faults apply, but slightly less power means slightly less stress on the emissions components. It's the better choice if you're budget conscious and the performance gap doesn't bother you.