olderman1

Your car should get over the air updates and the mapping updates should arrive twice a year around July and November time. You need to be signed up to Skoda Connect to receive the updates. There is more to this story though.

Off topic a bit, but I see that you have the latest mapping available i.e. 21.8. Did you get that over the air or did you do a manual update from the Portal ?

A misunderstanding then, maybe I'm too sensitive - not something I've been accused of in the past 😉

Interesting figures in your article, but they only talk about weights that the roof can take not the bars themselves, however........... Seems a rather drastic solution on what I assume is a new tent. Do they not make another model with the tracks spaced differently and if so, could you swap models ? Or as I mentioned yesterday, if you have the roof bars with slots along the top, have you got the wherewithal to make/get made some fittings that will utilise those slots ? As a way of trying to answer your original question, I have another set of roof bars in my garage which aren't Thule and the spacing between the footpacks is much less than the Thule bars when fitted to my car. Another possible solution is that Thule make, or used to make more than one set of footpacks that fitted the Kodiaq. I can't help much further than that because Thule changed the numbers of their footpacks since I last bought any and I'm now not so familiar with them. They do a type that simply clamp onto the roof rails, but the ones I have also have plastic coated metal straps that pass under the rails, thereby making a more secure connection (IMO) and are preferable for the canoes I carry. I cannot tell you what the spacing is between the footpacks, because I sold my Kodiaq and got a Kamiq.

Well first off Dave, I got the impression that xspartx was being sarcastic and if he wasn't then he should quantify what he meant. With regard to my initial reply to the OP, I thought it prudent to point out the weight limits of the Kodiaq roof as supplied by Skoda and also of roof bars in case they weren't aware. The OP says they are aware, so how they treat their car is up to them, I just thinks it's the correct thing to do to make people aware of all the facts, upon which they can then make their own decision. I know a reasonable amount about roof bars and carrying items on them as I've been transporting my 16' Canadian canoes on them for several years, so I know about the forces can be exerted against things on the roof. However, I know next to nothing about roof tents, so I had a quick squint online yesterday at generic ones as I don't know what make/model the OP has bought. The make I looked at claim that the car manufacturer weight limits only apply when the car has a load and is in motion. They claim that that cars are manufactured to take far more weight when they are static ( I saw an example of 500kgs), because there are no wind or cornering forces being exerted and also because their roof tent is spread evenly across the whole roof because of the platform it's based on. This may or may not be so and I can understand that if the weight of the tent was concentrated on the four ends of the roof rails where the roof structure is strongest, then their claims could be believed. However, the tent base is secured to the roof bars (not directly to the rails) which are inboard from the strongest points on the roof, so the initial weight of the tent and its occupants is on the roof bars, not the rails and the bars are only rated between 75/100kgs. Having said all that, I'd like to think that the tent manufacturers have tested their wares on actual roofs and bars, because if they haven't there could be events happening on car roofs that are worthy of Youtube and could be followed by court claims. The good thing about any failures is that they'll occur off the road, so won't hurt anyone other than the car owner. On a personal level, I can see the appeal of a roof tent, but I like my car too much so I wouldn't consider putting a tent on the roof. Apologies to the OP as this has gone a little off topic.

What does that mean ?

So you're talking about the size of the foot packs which attach the bars to the rails I believe ? There will not be an appreciable difference in the size of foot packs from different manufacturers because they have to be big enough and robust enough to clamp around the rails and have enough adjustment to do so. If you have Thule bars with slots in the top, they are designed to accept T bar fittings to which things can be attached. If you can use these, then the distance between the rear foot packs will make no difference because everything will be above the bars. If there's any adjustment on the roof tent fixings, could you not move the rear ones outwards so they fit outside of the roof rails, rather than inside of them ?

I think that you're probably not describing your problem very well if I'm reading this correctly. First off, as you're writing in a Kodiaq forum I assume you have a Kodiaq ? Secondly, when you buy a pair of roof bars, whatever the make, they will be the same length. I think the problem you're trying to describe is that the width between your roof rails (that's the longitudinal rails already fitted to the car) is wider at the front than it is at the rear. That's because the roof is wider at the front than it is at the back. It that's what you're describing, then buying a different make of bars won't make any difference. If I'm correct there might be a work around, but to find that out we'd need to see the fitting instructions for the roof tent. The other thing that bothers me, is that a Kodiaq roof and rails are only are only designed to take a maximum weight of 75kgs I believe and Thule bars will be similar, although if Thule bars can carry 100kgs, you can't carry that much if the Kodiaq roof is only rated at 75kgs. So if the combined weight you're intending to put on the roof, including the tent is more than 75kgs then you're asking for trouble.

My thoughts exactly and it's always good if you can see the work of the person being recommended before committing to them. Someone decided to relieve my Kodiaq of a small amount of bumper paint 2 weeks after I'd bought it. Based on a job I'd seen he'd done on my neighbours car, I took it to a guy who was 3 mins from my house, who I didn't know existed. He inspected it, gave me a quote the next day and arranged a day for the job to be done. He had the car overnight, did the spray job and also replaced a cracked reflector and you'd never have known the car had been touched. He was just a small one man band, but had been in the trade for years and has now sadly passed away.

So Mr roottoot, for the advisement of the OP and the wider community here that may in the future require paint and body damage repair, instead of shooting down all and sundry for their opinions and telling us that most anywhere is capable of doing a bad job - based on your many years of experience in the trade, could you please tell us how we should go about getting a good job done rather than about all the places that might do a bad job ? It would be very helpful if you could.

It would appear that you care about your car, so stay well away from touch up paints. As said, they're okay for keeping rust at bay, but it will look like your 3 year old did it. Chips away and similar companies can be hit and miss, depending on who's driving their van on any given day. Take the car to a reputable and well respected body shop and don't insult them them by trying to do their job for them. As said above, they'll have all the equipment in place to match the colour and do a good job.

I'm pretty sure that means either one of the two in front of the gear lever and NOT the one that might be fitted beside the rear view mirror. I can plug my music into either of the gear lever sockets and both will read it. I have wondered whether I have my infotainment settings as they should be, but I can't think or see what I'd change for the unit to read the files. It would appear that the same files we've downloaded for our Skodas will work in a VW as well, so I'm keen to try my download in my wifes Golf. Trouble is, she's not well so she isn't driving it and I'm not driving her car cos I want to get mine sorted out first as my mapping is older than hers. I find it difficult to comprehend that Skoda have got it so wrong and there's nobody that the man in the street i.e. me, can ask to get a definitive answer about how to do it. I saw earlier that you contributed to another thread on this subject in the Kodiaq section. There are currently 6 pages of posts there and still no definitive answer !! Assuming that Covid doesn't throw us a curved ball, we've booked to drive to France next May - I think I'll take my old Garmin which I've just updated with no bother at all 👍.

Many thanks. I've just been applying some polish and aqueous repellent to the car for about an hour and I had the engine running whilst I did it, but no map upgrade yet.

Sorry to be thick. When you say key, do you mean the car key or the flash drive ? If you mean the flash drive and those files disappear when you remove it, does the infotainment system retain the updated map version ?

Yes, certainly did, I did everything right this time. Do those files remain in your media page when you've unplugged your flash drive, or have you left it plugged in ? Seeing them in your infotainment system gives me a slight hope that eventually my system will read them.

Yesterday I went for a 1.5 hour non stop drive with a flash drive plugged in on which was loaded the unzipped map data file. They showed up on the flash drive as separate files just as Exkiwi showed above and I was 99% sure I'd got them there in the correct fashion. Nothing had changed when I got home, so I questioned whether I'd done it all correctly. I know that I have MIB3 as opposed to MIB2 in my previous Kodiaq, but my experience with the Kodiaq was that maps took less that an hour to download. Even Bryfly did it in 45 mins in his Kamiq. So, was I doing something wrong ? Last night I went through the whole sequence again of downloading from the Portal and then onto the flash drive and I took extra care to make sure I did it correctly and I even unzipped the file directly to the flash drive, thereby cuuting out the copy and paste sequence. I now have this flash drive plugged into the car and I'm hoping for a miracle 😏. I noticed yesterday when I plugged in the flash drive and also today with the latest one, that if I went to the Media page in the infotainment screen and clicked on the Kingston flash drive that was plugged in, all of the unzipped files were there in the same format the Exkiwi showed above on his computer. My question is; is that normal or are the files being read by the wrong part of MIB3 ????

Windows 10.

Yep, that's exactly what mine looked like except there were loads more files. Reloaded them onto flash drive today and stuck it in the car. All the files showed up on the screen in the media section and they also transferred themselves onto the other flash drive I had plugged in the car with all of my music on it, so my music disappeared.. My laptop keeps throwing up boxes with messsages telling me I can't do this and I can't do that, so what on earth is happening, I don't know. I've wiped and reformatted my flashdrives, put my music back on one and the map files on another using a slightly different method. I'll try the maps in the car tomorrow and if it doesn't work, I'll probably give up and either hope I get an OTA update or I'll get my dealer to have a go. I'm no computer whizz, but updating maps just shouldn't be this difficult, especially as I've followed the instructions and it has worked for me when I had the Kodiaq. Thanks for trying to help me Exkiwi, but I just don't have the skills and knowledge to follow all you write and doing it remotely makes it worse.

You can get cream for that nowadays 😉.

I did two updates on my previous Kodiaq with MIB2, both of which worked without unzipping. I've never unzipped a file in my life until last week. My wife has a Mk 8 Golf with the Discover Pro infotainment system. I haven't tried updating the maps in her car yet (although I have them ready) because she's not well at present, so her car isn't getting driven. This is what the download looks like on my laptop. EUR_6PR053_FCT3WS_201H0_Offline_Update This file is not zipped.

I'll give it another day or two, then I'll delete data from the flash drive and try again. Another thing to try; I have up to date map data on another flash drive that I downloaded from the VW site for my wifes car. The file for that has the same name as the Skoda one I downloaded, so I assume it's the same. I think I'll plug that into my car and see what happens and the VW instructions don't state that the file needs to be unzipped.

Well I've had the flash drive in the car for over a week now and although no single journey has lasted more than 30mins, overall the car has been driven plenty long enough for the map data to transfer. Not a thing has happened and I'm getting really annoyed with this Skoda system - why is it so damned complicated ?? Was driving the car just now and the screen informed me there were updates available, but I had to wait until the car wasn't moving. Thinking this might be OTA map updates, I gave it the okay when I'd stopped. No maps though, just minor stuff !!

I've tried the double ended USB flash drive and adaptors in the car, although I haven't yet tried an adaptor cable. I've reversed the situation now and bought a Kingston flash drive with a C USB plug which plugs directly into the car and to get media onto it from my laptop, I've bought a a C to A adaptor. I figured that having this sticking out the side of the laptop whilst downloading was preferable to having it all sticking out of the C sockets in the car permanently. I do have my music collection on a double ended C and A flash drive which is currently working fine. Have to agree with comments above about the sockets in the Kamiq. They are in the wrong place and whatever I plug into them doesn't fit snugly. The proper USB sockets in my previous Kodiaq were far superior.

Same as Kenny R said above. In fact I didn't unzip my file and it still worked. Also, you don't have to use an SD card, it also works with a flash drive plugged into your USB port. The first time I updated the maps it worked seamlessly, but on the second occasion some sort of corruption must have happened when downloading from the Portal, so I had to delete the file and download it again. Yes, it is MIB2 that you need.

I'll have to have a test drive in a shop before buying then.