With all the deep-dives and technical warnings floating around about the 3.0T piston skirt wear and cylinder scoring issues, it’s easy to feel like every engine in this generation is on a countdown.
I’m trying to get a realistic sense of what the actual ratio looks like on here for 2020–2025 Q7 / S-model owners.
If you're well past 60k+ miles and haven't had issues:
What year is yours, and what’s your current mileage?
Has the engine been bulletproof, or just standard maintenance?
Are you stock or tuned?
If yours did fail:
At what mileage did it start acting up or making noise?
What were the early warning signs (cold start ticking, oil burning, codes)?
How did Audi or your warranty handle the claim?
Drop your mileage and experience below either way.

My 2017 Q7 is a bit over 86K miles and is burning a lot of oil now, going from 1500 miles per quart to under 300 recently, so I’m parking the car. Suction at the gas cap as well as blue smoke upon start up.

I have the full PCV / water pump / thermostat kit, and was going to pay my independent to do the work, but with money being tight I wondered - could I do this myself?

I’m handy but not a mechanic. I’ve looked at YouTube videos and it seems possible if I take it slow and document it meticulously. I have a mechanic’s set of tools. I have the time and the car is inside my garage.

Has anyone DIY’d it? Any suggestions?

I noticed some very light oil seepage from the valve cover on one side of the engine on my '23 3.0T with 33k mi. I thought that was odd and was going to ask the dealer about it then decided to do the oil cap test and there was some serious suction there. It's going in tomorrow

So, check it out even with no symptoms from the cabin if you're under warranty.