diff --git a/bin/flatcar-install b/bin/flatcar-install
index 5a740be..5c1c1ba 100755
--- a/bin/flatcar-install
+++ b/bin/flatcar-install
@@ -642,7 +642,7 @@ function prep_url(){
     # if the version is "current", resolve the actual version number
     if [[ "${VERSION_ID}" == "current" ]]; then
         local VERSIONTXT_URL="${BASE_URL}/${VERSION_ID}/version.txt"
-        VERSION_ID=$(wget ${WGET_ARGS} -qO- "${VERSIONTXT_URL}" | sed -n 's/^FLATCAR_VERSION=//p')
+        VERSION_ID=$(source <(wget ${WGET_ARGS} -qO- "${VERSIONTXT_URL}"); echo "${FLATCAR_VERSION}")
         if [[ -z "${VERSION_ID}" ]]; then
             echo "$0: version.txt unavailable: ${VERSIONTXT_URL}" >&2
             exit 1
diff --git a/bin/flatcar-update b/bin/flatcar-update
index d1ca303..4fab4c5 100755
--- a/bin/flatcar-update
+++ b/bin/flatcar-update
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ while true; do
     echo "  -M, --listen-port-2 <PORT>		Overwrites standard listen port 9091"
     echo
     echo "Example for updating to the latest Stable release and disabling automatic updates afterwards:"
-    echo '  VER=$(curl -fsSL https://stable.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/version.txt | grep FLATCAR_VERSION= | cut -d = -f 2)'
+    echo '  VER=$(source <(curl -fsSL https://stable.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/version.txt); echo "${FLATCAR_VERSION}")'
     echo "  $(basename "${0}") -V \$VER -A"
     exit 1
     ;;