We have a 2014 Q7 TDI with just under 141,000 miles on it. The car is in good shape and my wife has followed the maintenance schedule faithfully through the dealer. A couple of years ago we kept intermittently smelling coolant and ultimately the dealer replaced the water pump, which seemed to fix the issue. Fast forward to last week. We were on a road trip for spring break and one morning when I started the car it shuddered and idled roughly for less than two seconds. It then ran fine. The next day a similar shudder and slight loss of power at about 5 mph then the car ran fine, although I noticed a lot of steam from the exhaust for the first 3 minutes or so as the car came up to temperature. When I started the car on day 3 the low coolant light came on and I turned it off immediately. No coolant was visible when looking into the fill cap and it took over half a gallon to get above the minimum level. This seemed to fix the shudder and we drove the car home covering about 650 miles with no issues. The next day the shudder was back and the coolant was low once again. I topped it off, drove it about 10 miles, and called the dealership. I took the car in the next day and they couldn't find an obvious leak. They left the system under pressure overnight but couldn't find an obvious leak the next morning. The mechanic then started the car to let it idle and see if he could find the leak. Apparently, while idling the car shuddered and then the motor seized. After doing further inspection, the dealership is now telling us that the coolant leaked into one of the cylinders causing a hydrolock and the motor is toast. A new motor is ~$22,500.50 (it cracks me up that they tacked on the extra $.50!) yet the car is only worth between $7,000 & $9,000.

Anyone had a similar experience and if so, how did you handle it? Sell the car, trade it in on a new one, what?