Land surface models (LSMs) are simulating land–atmosphere exchanges and are widely used in hydrology, operational weather prediction, research meteorology, and to assess land surface responses to future climate change. LSMs exhibit distinct differences in simulated water fluxes due to varying physical process representations and input land characteristics. We challenged seven state-of-the-art LSMs by altering soil hydraulic parameters from representing sand or silt to disentangle the responses of the water fluxes. The LSMs reacted differently due to complex, sometimes counter-intuitive interactions of infiltration, soil evaporation, and plant transpiration. We identified the representations of surface runoff and soil evaporation as the two main reasons behind model differences. We show how subgrid parameterization of a saturated fraction led to diverging sensitivities of runoff to soil parameters. Soil evaporation was the largest and most sensitive share of evapotranspiration in almost all models. Process parameterizations at the soil surface are identified as critical and should be improved to lead to more consistent flux partitioning. We demonstrate here that it is possible and worthwhile in model intercomparison studies to relate model results to specific process descriptions, helping users to understand model results of LSMs and helping modelling groups to identify weaknesses and move forward.