This information does not pertain to the US spec RNS 510 — please read through comments for info — these instructions are specific for UK and ROW Rest of World I was starting to find the maps on my RNS 510 were getting a bit out of date, after all I had never updated it since I purchased the car in 2009. I also read that newer versions of firmware also provided additional features, bug fixes and performance improvements, obviously! So I started doing a lot of googling and reading and found a wealth of information spread all over the place about how to upgrade both the firmware and maps on the RNS 510. So having successfully updated both the firmware and maps on my unit I thought I would write a guide to summarise, in one place, how I did it. First I will describe how I did the firmware upgrade, then I will move on to how I updated the maps. You can find out the specific hardware revision by a taking the unit out of the dash and looking for the part number or b using a secret hidden menu. It seems that on older firmware versions this hidden menu is not available. Fortunately, I found a web site that was quite encouraging and convinced me to take the plunge anyway. A high-risk strategy, and I would only encourage you to take it if you are prepared to take the risk! Obtain new firmware I found a really useful web site at gpsunderground. The chap here makes some pretty bold claims about which version of firmware works with with hardware revision, and the forum is full of people asking in broken English if it will work with their unit. So he basically says this: 1. I decided to go for firmware 5238, this also includes the video-in-motion VIM hack that stops the DVD player cutting out when you drive faster than 5mph. An alternative is to try and download it from BitTorrent, a torrent file you can try you will need to unzip it to extract the torrent file then use something like to process the torrent file and start the download. I burnt the ISO at the slowest speed my burner supported, which was 10x. My laptop came with CyberLink Power2Go, which is a very basic burner, but it worked fine for me. All the advice I have read states that the RNS 510 optical drive can be a bit fussy, so best to burn at the slowest speed you can. So now I had the firmware all burnt and ready I was itching to give it a go… but wait! I work in IT, and whenever you do anything in IT you ALWAYS have a back-out plan. So what was I going to do if it all went tits up? Well, turns out there is a recovery ISO that can help fix an RNS 510 if the firmware upgrade fails. Open the car up but do not put the key into the ignition. I put the CD-R with the firmware on it straight into the RNS 510 and it powered up and started to read the disc. With a bit of luck, everything will go smoothly! WARNING: There is a real possibility you will lose all your map data and music files on the HDD — make sure you have a map DVD available to reload your maps, unless you are happy to worry about that later! Check the upgrade was successful After my unit rebooted I was curious to see if my maps and music on the hard disk had survived the upgrade process. It seems that older firmware versions only used 2 hard disk partitions, one for the map data, the other for the music files. Of course if you are running a later version of firmware, you may already have 3 partitions, so may not lose anything. There are also other custom firmwares that change the partition sizes to give you more space for music files and not so much room for the POI data. Anyway, I was curious to see how much space I had for music, and as the HDD icon in media player was greyed out, I knew it had been wiped. On mine it is only 13. Next step is to check the hidden menu — I held down the setup button for about 10 seconds and sure enough it popped up. No idea why, but I guess the only way to really check is to pull the unit and look at the physical label. So what I did was insert my original map DVD that came with the car, this is Western Europe V3, so is really old, but it copied to the hard disk and I was up and running in no time. Obtain latest map DVD or ISO image The latest Western Europe map DVD at the time of writing appears to be V12. If you manage to get hold of the DVD ebay is your friend you can simply load it into your unit and copy it to your HDD. However, if you know where to look you can find the ISO image. Prepare SD card with map data and custom map loader CD The Internet really can be a wonderful place sometimes! Due to the problem of the latest maps being too big to fit onto a single layer DVD-R, the Internet found a way around the problem. Turns out a clever chap by the name of Christian Jeanin figured out a way to get the RNS 510 to load the maps off an SD card — brilliant! People appear to have been having problems with this, but I did it and it worked first time. This is used to boot the RNS 510 so it can copy the maps off the SD card. To start with, do a full format of the SD card using FAT32 and default allocation size and give it a volume name. There are two options, you can prepare to copy to SD card or try and compress the ISO to fit it onto a single layer DVD. Select the first option, hit build and let it run. After that, it will eject the firmware DVD and the new maps will be available on your unit Afterwards, I went into the hidden menu press setup for 20 seconds and sure enough, I now had the latest maps 8195 loaded. Please leave a comment if it did help. I followed it on my unit to make sure everything worked before fitting a 60GB SSD to replace the 30GB HDD. Hi Paul, originally I just updates my existing HDD using the guide. I put the 64GB SSD in yesterday, straight our of the box, it took around an hour on a nice big table. I Installed the firmware and the new V13 maps which were released a few days ago, worked perfectly. Hello Paul Nothing short of a brilliant guide, so I have my fingers crossed that it helps me restore my RNS510 A version. I bought firmware and a map upgrade on eBay, successfully installed the firmware, but found it impossible to load the maps. It kept getting to about 95% and then restarting. After a dozen or so unsuccessful attempts, I started trawling the net for answers, only to end up more confused than ever. It appears that the firmware I bought should never really have worked on my unit so I then had to downgrade, which was another drama!! I spent an age downgrading and then trying to reload the maps which still failed over and over again. This got me to the point of finding Maps Tool and your great tutorial. Anyway, fingers crossed, I shall report back…. Thanks again for the great guide. Someone I gave a disc to simply cloned it and started selling them. Looks like I have the old welcome screen. I have downloaded the 3 files but having problems un zipping them to put them on a cd. Not very good at all this. Thanks again for the guide….. Thanks for a great article. I am stuck on the bit where the SD card is in and the DVD is in but I am unable to enter the software upgrade mode. I press the setup + eject buttons on the RNS 510 but the button next to the eject is a star for me and the microphone button is on the steering wheel. Pressing all 3 just does the same as what would pressing the setup button would do i. Also, the DVD keeps getting pushed out… Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks I know you said: 1. However I have tried using the 5238 update on a 2009 unit and twice it has failed at the HDD update. The disc then gets ejected and I get this message: Anyone got any advice on how to resolve? Sent from my I-phone, cheers. I followed all the steps, it seemd to work fine and even got the succes display. But when I went to setup to see the map version there was none and was asking for maps dvd for the navigation. Is it possible my firmware got deleted or something? Pls respond thanks Ok now you may need to do more research, but if you are on an old firmware you might need to upgrade it first, the reason is that the newer maps need 3 partitions on the hard disk whereas the old firmware only uses 2. Ok, so just replying for anyone who will encounter the same problem. The v13 were a success …. I do not know for what reason, but after reinstalling the 5238 i had the v13 maps in full without having to do anything else. Normally when u install the firmware deletes everything you have on hdd, so i suppose now it acted as a repair only that managed to keep the v13 maps on the hdd. So if anyone encounters the same problem, popin the 5238 firmware cd back in if you get stuck like me and after it finishes you should have all ready to go. Thanks again to Paul for the quick response and for the detailed tutorial. Hi, Excellent post and instructions. I have several questions: Does this work for USA vehicles? I was able to unpackage the zipped files, and the ISO file size is 700MB and not the 450, as you indicated. The filename is RNS510-5238A-josi-VIM-Testmode. Could you please verify this is what you had once you unpackaged your file? Also, earlier in your post you mentioned that this upgrade includes the VIM 5mph being disabled? My apologies in advance for my duplicate entries, if it shows up. Great post on upgrading the RNS 510. Before applying I have 3 questions. I downloaded the files using 7zip and I was able to unzipped the file. The ISO file size is 700Mb and not the 450Mb. Can your verify your ISO file size? Is this firmware upgrade valid for USA VW cars with RNS510? In your post you indicated that the firmware disables the VIM timeout of 5mph. Want to make sure this is correct before applying since my current system has this feature turned off. Yes the ISO is 700MB. I have no idea if it works for US models, you do this at your own risk. Try the forums, someone there may be able to help. VIM is enabled just like I said, so you can drive faster than 5mph and the video will still show, great for the passenger s but not for the driver eh? Hi Paul, thank you very much for your post. These steps are easy to read and follow. I followed these steps exactly and now the update with both the firmware and the map is successful. Just a few additional comments that may help: 1. When updating the firmware, I have to set the clock mode to 24h and leave the door open. Otherwise I get a clamp state error. To enter the upgrade mode, the three buttons on my RNS 510 are SETUP+EJECT+STAR next to EJECT. I read somewhere that a guy is asking the buttons when the MIC is on the steering wheel. Thanks so much for this guide Paul. Worked perfectly and as described on my 2011 Skoda Columbus unit and happy to find no re-partition was needed so all data was retained. Little discernible difference in the firmware except for the version info hidden menu option but useful to update to V13 maps from an SD. Hi i have tried to follow these steps. After burning firmware 5238 to a CD R at a slow speed of x4 the unit asked for a swl recovery disk. So i downloaded the swl and got the system back on. Any pointers in what im doing wrong? If I then merge them together the file size would be over 2GB, however you mention the resulting file size is small enough to fit on a CDR. Just a note for anyone following this, I have noticed some subtle differences since upgrading to this firmware, the main one being the lack of mp3 resume. You can only bypass this by changing the source to Radio before pulling the key. So if you have an early model RNS 510, like me, you might lose this MP3 resume feature when you upgrade. The alternative is to use a stock firmware. Please check out the thread here for full info: Hi Paul, Did you burned the recovery ISO on a CD too? What a waste of space. If not, what did you do? If the CD is ejected, I can navigate without it. Which should mean that I have a HDD in it, just cant get any info about it. Would love to know how big it is in order to make a decision either replace it if the size is too small, or install the maps if I have enough space. So today I tried to do the firmware update and updating the navigation maps. But I used 2x speed for writing. But I moved on updating the navigation from V6 to V13. After 30 min it completed successfully. Then the system rebooted and I was curious if pressing the setup button for 10 sec would do anything. Secret menu showed up, and I learned that I have a C unit the delivery port number ends with 680C. The SW-Version is 2720, which is pretty old. The map got updated to 8195. I read somewhere that I need to have a SW version not older than 3xxx for this to work. So it seems that I have to retry burning the image again. Any questions let me know. Please can help find how can I add Nigeria map to my existing navigation map version as I do NOT fancy the Chinese android units and I;ve contacted my local VW dealership and NO solution. Connect to the internet using USB internet dongle. Just through Rns 510 and enjoy your life. Update was really good and very user friendly guide. Seemed to work fine — though the drive was a bit precious about the CDs, it took 3 times but eventually the first disc I burnt worked. If a later firmware gets released would you be doing a guide for that? Hi, your guide is brilliant. I have tried it and it works fine, but with one problem. I installed firmware 5238 and maps west V13. Everything works fine, only steering wheel buttons doesn´t work! I don´t know what can i do with it. Škoda Octavia 2007, Columbus RNS 510 I have another question. I tried this in my fathers Škoda Superb 2010 also with Columbus RNS 510. This navigation does not read any CDs or DVDs, home burnt and original too. I found in one of forums, that it can be laser error. Have you same advices? Can u help me? Thank you very much for every reply. Have a good day. U just need to download that file. It will patch the firmware, and your buttons on the steering wheel will work. I know you said: 1. However I have tried using the 5238 update on a 2009 unit and twice it has failed at the HDD update. The disc then gets ejected and I get this message: SWL Error An error has occurred related to the SWL Media. Please remove the existing media and either insert the same SWL image on a different Media to continue or insert a new SWL image to start a new SWL process. Can anyone help here? Cheers Hello, help to understand which I need to put the firmware. Tell me which can be placed navigation map now, or which firmware update to be able to put the latest boulaur card? Hi Paul and all I have this issue looks like a common one my radio RNS 510 starts with the logo of VW and directly switch off, tried to disconnect…etc but nothing, looks like a firmware issue right? Thanks a lot for your quick support all of you and your quick promt Hi Paul I have read on my gti. I am running the RNS510 with V5 maps and it has reverse cam installed. Keen to give this a go tomorrow but just wanted to know if any of the above features mentioned are likely to cause issues? You guide and links are very good by the way great read nice and clear!! Cheers Ed Hi Paul, thanks for your support, in fact the above mentioned version for some reason i could not use it, i spent half a day trying but the update goes interrupted in half a way, i downloaded 5269 version and TADAAAAAA it works , the issue now is that i lost all the maps and as you might know the volume of the ISO image cannot fit into one DVD, any advises on this? Thanks in advance Thanks for your quick prompt, would you advise please step by step how to use the SD card for maps? I have a question. Is it even possible to install both maps on the HDD or I must change cards and install only one every time? I installed everything as it says here , the software was able to upgrade now 5238 , I also upgraded the map but when I go to look at the folders writes that they are not? During installation map all went well and at the end of the CD out and reset , but writes that in the cards is blank and constantly asks me : please insert DVD with maps … Where is the problem???? Sorry for my bad english, Hi Paul. Updated the firmware following your guide that was fine and my ver 12 map was still there. Decided to upgrade to ver 13 map and after being in the drive for more than an hour got a message about it being a bad disk. Here is the video with my old version just in case you need some info : Can you help? Regards, Mihai mihai24silus at yahoo com Few notes with v13, card instructions mode.. In total will be 5 or 6 reboots, at least that how it was in my case. Thanks a lot for instructions. I will keep trying and report back here if I ever get it to work. All the details are in the post. I have RNS510 from 2009. I made everything like you say, loaded v12 eastern europe from sd card, firmware 5238 from your links but I have a problem. Paul, thanks for this blog, I had been considering upgrading the firmware on mine as I kept driving across fields where roads had been changed e. Max Stevens Reblogged this on and commented: Wow! Das hat tatsächlich funktioniert! Ich hatte bei meinem RNS 510 eine endlos Bootschleife und die VW Werkstatt konnte wollte? Jetzt läuft es wieder — inkl. Und entgegen der Angaben von VW kann mein SD-Kartenleser offensichtlich doch SD-Karten lesen, die größer als 2GB sind! Zumindest mal 8GB klappte. Mein EOS ist Baujahr 2008… Hi Paul, So I have recently bought Skoda Octavia 2 2009 with RNS 510 unit. And I deciced to upgrade firmware and maps and I founded your blog. At first I want to thank you for such detalied way to upgrade RNS 510,but seems like I have a problem.. I used google to search about that problem and it seem like i have not found any answer. Can you help me? Sorry for bad english btw. Did you find a solution? I was updating to 5238 and been using it for a year, worked fine. Also updated to V12 with SD method, everything worked fine. Now i am trying to update to V 14, but i get problems. Now i have burened like 20 cd -r, but rns 510 dont read the maps to hdd iso correct. It loads the maps to hdd, and reboots a couple of times, then nothing more happens. Can you help me? I was wondering if i should try to burn the ssd to hd,iso into A DVD +R, and see if that helps. But i may be pointless then? Do you think a DVD with a map for ebay would do the job, or do you think is something in the firmware that seems to be the problem? I guess 5238 is the latest firmware i can get on this device? I didn;t know where the problem was so upgraded teh firmware to 5238 and still had the same problem. HDD and no Solid state drive. The 1140 enables clock display with unit off and also 32GB SD cards. All data remained untouched, not reformat of HDD or else. Found SW1140 and burnt on DVD-R at slowest speed. Also found V10M North America maps ISO and burnt ISO on DVD-R DL at slowest speed. After performing reset the Map update DVD copied to HDD just fine and also finished that process. While at it updated to current bootlogo, now the old RNS510 is a much more useful unit especially considering the much more current map data. I copied the DVD and CD 10X speed. Use good DVD and CDs. Maptools SW work on the 39XX formware and above. A chrismas gift for you guys: V14 maps. We will need to wait for the maptools update to v14 : Link to the ISO: Enjoy! It´s just trying to start screen backlight goes on. The reset Buttons: back+foward+star does not work nor does the eject+star+setup work. I also removed the car-batterie but with no success. But the SDtoHDD iso CD is still in there and the RNS don´t want to eject it. Does anybody know what to do? My RNS510 1T0 035 680C with original sw 2840 became now 1T0 035 680L sw 5238 after upgrade. Now have faster startup and VIM as well! Hi mate, brilliant work. I have a 2009 Scirocco with RNS510, i was going to attempt the hard disk upgrade, but I think it probably wont be needed if the SD card slot can read SDHC cards. Update worked, 5238 working fine with no issues. Only choice is to attempt doing via the SD method but the link is dead…. Paul is there any chance you can host it via a dropbox or something if you have a copy? Preferably Mac version but windows will have to do if its the only option.. Otherwise my phone is doing a great job as my temporary sat Nav, probably heaps better than using a built in system but hey i gotta give it a chance.. My old gameboy was faster at doing things.. Hi, hopefully anyone can help me with this. It has a size of 683MB instead of 700MB thats what my windows explorer says. Just updated to 5274 using this guide, got bit squeaky bum when the firmware first failed at 71% then after the maps v14 the 510 stuck in boot loop. I updated my MAP to V14. This was good as the link to the MAP TOOL in the original text has stopped working now… Yes, thanks for all the info. My VW is 2009 and I think the RNS510 is factory fitted, the HW is H11 and version C12. I found that updating my RNS510 was a real project of perseverance. Basically nothing worked properly unless the ignition was turned on and the engine was running approx 1000 rpm. I purchased a V14 8477 Navigation DVD from ebay but installing from it never worked, the vendor said my DVD lens needed cleaning! My PC runs Ubuntu Linux and I learned that I can simply rename that. So I then successfully installed the navigation files from an SD Card but upon completion my unit got itself into a start loop with just the VW logo appearing and disappearing!. I might have an answer to some of the issues raised in your description. You wondered why your music and navigation data did not survive the firmware upgrade process. I guess the reason is that you used the version 5238 by Josi. Apart from the other changes Josi seems to have done to the firmware, he also inserted a repartitioning command into the DLSCRIPT. Without this re-partitioning command your music probably would have remained intact. Unless of course you already have exactly that partitioning scheme on your harddrive in which case the re-partitioning seems to get skipped as well. That was one of the reasons why I used the release 5274 instead. This is an unmodified original VW release as you can see in the comment line in the VERSION. TXT in the root folder: CommentStart: This is a SWL CD for VW delivery. You can see the modified versions when the line says instead: CommentStart: This is an unofficial SWL CD by josi. Use it at your own risk. As it is the case with all 5238 versions I could find and some of the 5274 versions as well. Unfortunately I ran into some trouble nonetheless. I first updated my system with the latest Maps Western Europe V14 — 8477 to make sure that I have a working Maps source available in case my HDD would be re-partitioned despite my best efforts to avoid that. That worked instantly with a Dual Layer DVD+R that I had burned carefully at the slowest speed 2. Anyhow afterwards I was running on 8477 according to the version info. The next step was to update my system from 3970 to 5274. I burned a CD, inserted it as mentioned and let it run. No progress at all was visible and at some point the screen turned off by itself. That was when I tried to eject the CD for the first time. I tried it again with the same CD only to end up again being stuck at the GATEWAY part. Since it had gotten to late I decided to give it another try the next day with the previous version 5269. Which I did and lucky me it went through. Although I had to manually restart the system by turning the ignition key to get the update process going again. I waited some time and then gave it another manual restart and it finally showed the SUCCESS message. Unfortunately at this point my car started to behave weirdly like the numbers on the temperature control starting to blink in a funny rhythm when turning on the radio and I was already afraid of having fried some important key components when I wondered if my battery might have been emptied by all that endless updating over 5 hours at least for the maps and three firmware update runs. So I turned the key in the ignition and I got the familiar sound of a starter not having enough juice. After recharging my battery everything seemed to be fine though. Holding SETUP for 10 seconds revealed that my system was apparently running on 5269. I will give the 5274 another try maybe it works when upgrading from 5269 instead of 3970 to 5274? Should I get stuck again I would run the 5269 update CD another time. My advice to anybody not wanting to re-upload all his music and map data is to carefully pick the release. If the release contains no re-partitioning command like the 5269 or the unmodified 5274 at the my-gti. Apparently the system seems to be also more robust than I would have hoped since it could deal with a stuck upgrade process as well as with system shutdowns during the upload of the new firmware due to an empty battery. I would advise against an update using the 6276 release unless you are 100% sure that your system is a C14 mine is a C11. So I recommend making a screenshot of your version display by pressing SETUP for over 10 seconds and then using your mobile phone to take a picture of the figures displayed. If anybody has any idea why 5274 got stuck at the GATEWAY part, I would appreciate sharing it here with everybody. For clarity, this is: SW: 5238 Update by josi On a 2009 Gold GTI with the RNS510. I could not get hardware revision as the secret setup menu does not show. So like Paul Roberts took a risk. Once my battery is in good health I need to decide what to do. Currently my unit is out of action, between firmware installations. Hi, could you help me please. I bought the firmware update and maps update v14 from ebay. The firmware updated okay, but it did erase the maps which I reloaded as I had the original maps v3 The problem came when I tried to load the new maps, error message. I followed your solution by downloading maps tool and putting the disc in my pc. Maps tool can not find the iso image on the disc. Do you have any suggestions please? Hi, I managed to find a live link to download Western Europe V12 at gpspower. When using the SD Card method everything looks correct, just like your step by step here. I abborted after 1h40min first go around. Booted as normal, but no maps. Any advice for me, other than patience? SD Card 8GB new and formatted FAT32 etc. I hope Paul is reading this. The writeup is nice and very useful. Thank you a lot! I managed to update my RNS 510 version B, on a 2009 VW Passat 2,0 TDI Highline to 5238 on the first attempt without any problems. Anything worked fine afterwards: Rear View Camera, MFS buttons, everything. Updating my maps however drives me crazy. Now almost no data disks are read by the unit, however music CDs and movie DVDs work fine. That is why I am simply unable to restart the unit successfully with any kind of boot disk: format maps+hdd, format maps, maptools boot disk, any. In SWL update mode the maptools bootdisk is loading, the progress bar reaches the end, screen goes black as if the unit is restarting, but after a while every sign of life is gone — nothing happens. Navigation also runs fine from the inserted SD card, but I can not find a way to load the maps to the HDD which I would like to do a lot. I wrote 10+ various CDs on two different writers at different speeds, none of them seem to work. The only data disk the unit can read is a Verbatim DVD-R with the map data. I wrote the maptools sd2hdd iso on such a DVD but it is unreadable even in the unit that produced the disk. Can anyone suggest a workaround to get my maps on the hdd? Many thanks to any wizard having the magic receipt! I have the EXACT same problem. Updated to 5238 and intalled maps V12, everything worked fine. This is what happens: In SWL update mode the maptools bootdisk is loading, the progress bar reaches the end, screen goes black as if the unit is restarting, but after a while every sign of life is gone — nothing happens. Did you find a solution? Per your in depth article Everyone can use firmware 5238 and newest maps , I went with firmware 5238. So far so good. As nothing was altered you are able to continue with the original SW. Please remove the CD and the target will automatically reboot to the original SW. The RNS is still fully functional, just no joy in the firmware upgrade. I will also try another brand of CDRs. Did you simply copy the iso file to the CD drive? If so that is incorrect. I was able to update the maps to V11M, just insert the DVD, and let it go, worked fine. In other words what features are added or fixed by later firmware? Hi I was hoping someone can help. I have managed to use the software update from this blog to successfully update my rns 510. I was having the same issue where i couldnt tell what version my rns was. I am now having an issue with the maps downloading. I bought a dvd off ebay v14 western europe. The issue is that the loading bar will go to about 90% and then it will go back to the start. It has been doing this loop for a few times and it just wont go past that. What am i doing wrong? Or maybe someone can send me the files to put on the SD card so i can install maps from an SD. Please please please can someone help as i am struggling on this big time. Many thanks My V14 self-burned went through fine. It took ages though. If I recall correctly far more than an hour. Maybe two or three? What I do remember though is that after all the updates and MAP installations I had managed to empty my battery and needed a kickstart from another car. This post is still getting thousands of views every month though! What car are you going onto after the R36, another 4WD VAG group car or something else? Ah so you got the DL DVD working? I heard of people having problems due to the layer change, do you have to do anything special to stop that happening mid-file? Got it on a 3yr PCP but will be very interested in a hybrid or EV at the end of the contract, depends how the tech develops. Worked like a charm with V14. With V15 I did as before — used Maps Tools 2. I entered the SD card, the test mp3 played nicely, then restarted the unit and insterted the DVD plate. The system boots from the DVD. The unit just restarts. Tried the DVD i used the last time and it worked fine. The process looks exactly as described above. Still have the old v14. I had exactly the same problem, and have been trying to do this for months. After 20 sec — Inserted the 5238 firmware CD If you still have it — the one you used when you updated to firmware 5238. The unit will rebot a couple of times. Download Imgburn, and burn the SSD to HD. I would love to get a feedback from you. Hi Paul, Many thanks for your great work. I bent the lower tabs flush with the hdd cover. I had to remove the replacement drive and reload the partitions twice before I had the system up and running. Best wishes for the future year from Down Under, Bob. I just installed newest V 15 West map,and noticed that TMC is not working. Anyone have idea how to solve this problem? I tried with different software version but the problem stays. When I tried to downgrade to V14 or V13 the TMC works just fine. Also for no apparent reason my rns 510 has changed the button colours and removed the compass from the cockpit display. Will updating the firmware currently 3970 reverse this. Cheers Gary First of thank you for the clear guide! I succesfully updated my RNS510 with to the 5238 firmware. Just turn on the RNS510 without keys in ignition , insert the firmware CD and be patient!!! You think the radio will go off several times and nothing happens, but just WAIT! After confirming that you want to update twice it will take about 50minutes in display it says 55minutes and the radio will go off black several times! After update I pushed the Setup button till the menu with FM, AM and version came up. My Golf is from nov-2009. So I guess this Delivery Part Number is not something to rely on! Need to thank you again! With your clear guide I managed to update the maps to V15 2018 with an 8Gb SD card class 10 and map tools v2. I found the maps tools v2. See: There he gives firmware versions VS RNS-510 versions. However Peter was a Continental dealer and repair service until 2015, when development of the RNS-510 stopped so I read. I decide that his knowledge was worth the cost to me. This was not a problem, merely annoying. The firmware upgrade fixed that too. I guess the picture file was reloaded as a part of the upgrade. For example when replacing a hard drive the NAND memory partition has to be wiped before full firmware can be installed to initialize the hard disk drive and partition it properly. In regards to boot and what happens during boot is fairly simple. Each function is launched almost like an app and runs in the background. To what I know Radio starts first, then rear view camera, Sirius, and last is Navi portion of the unit. These are not the quickest units out there but the last revision of them with SSD drive is very solid unit and easily repairable if something should go bad as there are parts available for them. Newer units I sell from MK7 cars called MIB2 are much more complicated as they tie into the cars electronics so deep, that if not coded correctly systems of the specific car module can shut down. We are reaching a point in time, where car radios will no longer be replaced by third party, and car manufacturers want to eliminate third party parts installation on any cars as it causes a headache for them, and people want to claim warranty caused by these parts on many occasions. Any chance you can put a big disclaimer on your post that this information does not pertain to the US spec RNS 510? US spec firmware is here: I had a similar problem with mine, when updating the Maps after upgrading the firmware. What I did I was install an older version of the firmware v. In the hidden menu press + hold setup , you need to select the option to allow installation of backward software. Good luck After searching a lot i found your tuto! Thank you for this post!!! All worked fine for me PASSAT 2010 — RNS 510 : — firmware 5238 update — map V13 and V15 found, tested and operational! I have just upgraded our 2010 Superb to modern firmware 5238 and 2018 maps via the SD card mechanism. One point of note — older machines cannot cope with large SD cards. The RNS510 would not read a 128Gb card but after some further reading I used a 32Gb card and it worked first time. Thank you for these excellent instructions. Firmware: I successfully used it to upgrade the firmware. SatNav maps: My attempts to upgrade satnav maps to v15 with an SD card using maptool were not successful. I purchased a v15 map DVD from ebay, which was inexpensive It did take well over an hour to install but all is well.