I was north toward the canadian border of Vermont this weekend. Planned ahead and put good wiper fluid in the car (full bottle). Sadly, fluid was still frozen for about two hours of driving before I could clean the windshield. Noticed nozzle goes through the hood... any way to prevent this from happening in the future? Made the drive painful. 2013 Q7 TDI.

 

Yosie, try to find fluid that has the appropriate cold temp rating, -20F, for example or colder, if you need it.

You should be able to add a couple of ounces of rubbing alcohol in the meantime. Stay warm!

 

This JUST happened to me as well. I recently purchased a Q7 from CA. It's in great shape but arrived with whatever fluid they were using there -- they're not likely concerned with freezing temps.
I live in New England. As you probably know, we had a severe cold snap a week ago and temps where I live were ~0'F.
I had a puddle of frozen fluid on the concrete garage floor under my passenger fender.
I pulled the fender liner and expected to find a fluid washer tank that was cracked by the frozen fluid. But everything was intact and it seems the fluid froze in the tank, expanded, and pushed unfrozen fluid out through the passenger side headlight washer which hit the floor and froze solid.
Anyhow, I buttoned things up and headed out to buy low-temp wiper fluid. It was just below freezing outside, and I decided to squirt all of the old fluid out of the tank while it was not frozen, to make room for the low temp fluid.
All of the "CA fluid" I sprayed all over the windshield and headlights literally froze into a crust on my vehicle. After refilling with the low-temp fluid, all is good now!

Short version: Get the -20 or -30 fluid, completely replace the old fluid with it, and you should be fine.

 

My Q sat outside in -10F temps with wind gusting up to 40mph. I expected washers would work since I had dumped in the Winter fluid a few weeks prior, but alas, nothing due to the extreme overnight deep-freeze, even though sun out and temps in the low teens after car had been idling a bit while I shoveled snow to mark edge of driveway. We got 20" of light powder over glaze ice in a 24 hrs period, btw, so that's a Winter record/ first for me, and the depth of drifts from the wind were pretty crazy in spots. Do wanna report that the Cooper Discoverer Road & Trail A/T tires were quite happy navigating/powering through this heavy snowfall; an excellent four season tire for the Q7.

I topped off with the -20 degree rated de-icer version today, so here's hoping. Tucked the Q7 in warm garage on battery charger for good measure since gonna be -6F or lower overnight, and the TDI was cranking slow...bbbrrrrrrrr!!!! Looked up 5W30 synth, and it's flow rated down to -30 degrees F, but better believe it was thick. The 0W30 is flow rated down to -40 degrees F, just FYI, so not as much diff as you might think on the 'how cold is too cold for my oil weight' debate. My advice; keep it in the garage on the deep-freeze nights.

Comic relief in-the-cold: My son's F-150 4X4 literally didn't make it out of the driveway before getting stuck due to the way their 4X4 system activates and the OE tires on it are absolute garbage in the cold/snow. The old Q7 with very good tires (but not dedicated winters) mounted took to the snow like a duck to water...just don't forget to hit that ESP button by emergency flashers button to turn off stability control; that's what tells the Q7 AWD system it's time to get serious...and it does.

 

I have seen colder, -30 C which is -22 F That's cold enough to make snot crunchy. This is the coldest the Q7 has seen.

 

It's very warm here at the moment (perhaps -12C / 20F), but the Q7 noted a temperature of -39C / -38F on Friday morning. As such, I cannot feel pity for anyone's temperature woes (and I thank you for taking our cold air off our hands for a bit!).

I always know when it is -30F or colder because the Pentosin mineral oil for the power steering thickens enough at that point that it makes the power steering pump whine.