Fifteen minutes in your own driveway. One USB stick. No tools, no garage, no appointment.
Read this page once before you start. It is short, and doing it in order matters.
You do not need your VIN here — you gave it at checkout, and the activation is already written against your car. There is no code to enter anywhere.
Do not put the stick in the car until the files are on it and unzipped. If you plug it in half-prepared, the car will not pick it up and you will be starting over.
Mac: Disk Utility → select the stick → Erase → Format MS-DOS (FAT), Scheme
Master Boot Record.
Windows: right-click the drive → Format → File system FAT32 → Quick Format.
If your stick is bigger than 32 GB and Windows will not offer FAT32, use a smaller stick. That is the quickest way past it.
Unzip setup.zip and copy everything inside it to the top level of the
stick — not into a folder. Do not rename anything, and do not put anything else on the stick.
When you are done, the stick should show a Data folder and a Meta folder side by side at
the top level. If instead you see a single setup folder, you have gone one level too deep — open it and
move those two folders up.
Engine does not need to be running, but the car must stay awake — so don't do this with the door open and the car about to go to sleep.
Within a few seconds the screen changes to the car's own software update display and starts working on its own. There are no menus to find and nothing to confirm. Leave it alone for three to five minutes.
When it finishes you will see our Install complete screen, and the unit restarts by itself. That restart is the sign it worked.
Once the unit is back up, remove the stick. From here the car does the rest by itself: it checks in with us, sees your VIN on the list, and pulls down your activation.
It only needs to be online — the car's own data, or parked close enough to your home Wi-Fi. Most cars are done within minutes of coming online, but give it up to a few hours before worrying.
Plug your phone in — or connect wirelessly, if that is what you bought — and check the screen.
If the feature is not showing yet, switch the car fully off, lock it, wait five minutes, then start it again. Some features only appear after a proper sleep cycle.
If a dealer software update ever wipes the activation, the same stick puts it back. You do not pay again for the same car.
During step 3 the car shows one of four screens. This is what each one means and what to do about it.
You do not have to guess whether it worked. Your order reference — it looks like CPF-XXXXXX and is on
your order page — shows you exactly where your car is up to.
You will see one of three things: waiting for your car to check in, your car has been in touch and the activation is on its way, or installed and active. It also tells you when we last heard from the car, which is usually the fastest way to tell whether the problem is the install or the connection.
| What you are seeing | What to try |
|---|---|
| Nothing happens after you plug the stick in | Almost always the format or the folder layout. Re-format to FAT32, and make sure Data and
Meta sit at the top level of the stick rather than inside another folder. |
| The install screen appears but ends in an error | Nothing was changed on the car. Re-copy the files to a freshly formatted stick and try once more. If it fails twice the same way, email [email protected] with your order reference. |
| Install completed, but the feature never arrives | The car is not reaching us. Park closer to your Wi-Fi or check the car's own data, keep the ignition on, and give it another twenty minutes. Your progress page shows whether we have heard from it. |
| The screen goes blank or the car restarts | Expected, once. Leave it alone until it comes back up on its own. |
| It finished but the feature is not visible | Switch the car fully off, wait five minutes, then start it again. Some features only appear after a proper sleep cycle. |
| Still nothing after all that | Email [email protected] with your order reference and what you saw at each step. We can see from our side whether the activation reached your car. |
This is the self-install lane, and we would rather be honest about it than have you find out later.
Support is by email only: [email protected]. There is no phone line and no live chat — that is part of why this costs what it does. Quote your order reference and we will usually come back within a day.
One car per purchase. The activation is tied to the VIN you gave us. A second car needs a second order — the same purchase will not move across.
It is reversible. Nothing is permanently rewritten and no firmware is replaced. If you ever want the car back to standard, it goes back.