Skoda Yeti Work Car Setup

This Skoda Yeti 2015 has to be used for work. This means allot of spare parts and tools has to be stored in it. The car has allot of space. The problem was stacking, the floor for it is uneven. I also wanted the back of the car to have multi usage and take short time to be loaded and unloaded.

I removed back seats and spare tire. I then bought two rubber mats to cover the area. The plan was to start using more boxes for tools and equipment. I got rid of old tool cases and bags and got everything to fit in three types of boxes.I tested driving with some boxes and by the time I hit the brakes on some lights everything that had been stacked had fallen down. It was also a challenge to fill up the car since the floor is uneven and has parts sticking up here and there.

After spotting the Fat Berta 3.0 on the internet I decided a wooden frame would be the best option for achieving my goals of fast loading and unloading and having everything tight and snugged in it's place. The Fat Berta project is about making the Skoda yeti good for camping trips and is quite interesting in it self, please check it out. To make his plans work for me I had to make some modifications.

First I maid a simpler frame, the size of the frame was decided by the sizes of the boxes I was going to be using. After some thinking I decided to make the frame into two parts so I could remove the front part and re-install seats and keep the back part of the grid in the trunk. This also maid the grid easier to remove and install for one person.

The height of the frame was a constant readjustment, I was lowering parts and increasing holes along the way. The longest planks have different heights depending on what area of the car they are laying on. The Rubber mats really helped make everything feel firm, tight and "normal looking". This frame also ended up being simpler than the Fat Berta 3.0 frame, there are no moving parts. This also meant I was able to make a long shelf in the front of the frame where I should have built legs if I had followed the Fat Berta 3.0 to the letter.

One of the goals was to have options regarding how I would stack the boxes. Also it needed to be easy to shuffle the boxes around to be able to get easy access to everything. My current setup has the big box in the front that can be accessed from the back doors, four boxes in the middle that have spare parts and smaller tools. The back has one box dedicated to any kind of chemicals or oils that could spill and my drill case (that can't hit the interior).

Since I am now mostly using boxes it is now takes very short time to empty the car over weekends. And stack everything up in a small area. Still when the tools and boxes sticking out or siting on the frame where removed the back of the car looked like a unfinished construction so I continued building.

I maid lids on all of the holes in the grid. Now when I very quickly empty the car, I can throw these lids on and have a big trunk. Every lid has a frame under it making it a tight fit. I also added two rubber mattresses on top to make things more stable and looking more in line with the rest of the car.

I have thought about making the third setup for camping. After reading about the Big Berta projects it's hard not to. I have Ideas about sawing out two more parts demonstrated in darker lines on the drawing above. The lower part on the picture would work as a lid and have much deeper frame attached under it to help it stay stable. The two new parts would be connected whit a piano hinge and be folded together during travel. I am not sure how I would solve the support issue underneath but I am sure it would not be a big problem to fix.

If I would build this the height would go up to 140cm (the measurement was a little different if I move the seat as far front as possible). I would need a mattress 140x100 (plus the sides on the top maybe 20cm extra). The height of the mattress would have to be around 10cm to fit the height of the car seat laid down. With the length of the car seat added the length goes up to 220cm. Personally I would sleep with my head facing the back door of the car and keep my feet on the back of the seat (in a sleeping bag) witch means I don't get the use of the 20cm extra side space.

What temps me most is how little extra material this would require (except for an custom sized mattress).

This last part has been me thinking out loud. I hope this has been of use to somebody. Please comment if you start your own project or have any questions.