Hey Guys quick question, even in the lowest setting my HVAC tends to blow warm air, is that "normal"? Say the car sits out side in 60-70F weather I get in and it's in the low 60s, the warm air (80F) will blow for at least 30-40 min... Is this an issue or does the car just heat up as such?I don't want to run AC at 60F that just seems wrong.

 

I have also noticed that there is no way for it to just pull in air from outside like a transitional vent. Seems wasteful to have to run the AC when it is 50° or lower outside.

 

Is yours blowing warm quite a bit as well ?

 

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE DRIVING my Mini despite the flaws below and other flaws. There simply is no other car like it, but some of the BMW DNA is just laughable.

So now BMW/Mini wants us to believe that the reason that Minis like mine do not flow through fresh air is to extend the life of the cabin air filter? "I was told all Minis do that to extend the life of the cabin air filter." Really? The only car I've ever owned that does not allow fresh air to freely flow into the cabin and I've owned 2 Jags, 3 Mercedes, 2 BMW, 1 Alfa, 1 Lexus, 3 Saab, 1Acura, 1 Mazda and now we have 1 Minis. Other than it being a performance enhancement the only reason I can think of intentionally nixing the function is production cost. Why would they design around a common function to extend the life of a $12-$22 filter? Then there is the possibility that they just screwed up. And no, I don't buy what another comment noted which is that the car measures the purity of the outside air and if it's too full of junk it automatically switches the ventilation to recirculate, to which I call BS because if that were the case first, wouldn't the recirculate switch light come on and second, fresh outside air never comes in regardless of where I'm driving.

Same for the even more laughable "Comfort" setting on the moon roof. When you double click to open the moon roof it stops a few inches short of opening fully. BMW/Mini states that it opens to the "Comfort" position to avoid the unpleasant wind noise that arises when it opens fully. How about designing it so that the problem is solved? Not a problem on any of my previous cars.

 

Thats horse poop.

I can set fresh air in any setting.

 

WHAT YEAR IS YOUR CAR? How about sending a photo of the settings that allow the fresh air flow? Thanks!

 

2017
This isn't high school, I dont need to PROVE anything.
I can turn recirculate on and off as needed. Theres a button for that.

Recirculate is only forced during MAX AC, but thats the point of MAX AC, it recirculates inside air to double cool it, as in a ny car.
Recirculate would not be forced during heating, as inside air would fog your windows on a cold day.

Extend the life of the cabin filter. Thats a joke.

If you CAN NOT turn off RECIRC, then the sensor is bad, or you live in Bejing, where the air is so bad, the sensor cuts off your fresh air.!

 

Correct, this isn't high school. It's a community of people with like interests where discussions include requests for suggestions on how to solve problems. Not sure how my request for you to share what settings work for you to get fresh air flow was misinterpreted as a request to PROVE anything??????????????????????????????????????

 

Push the recirculation button until the curved arrow light goes out!!

 

I don't think you guys are on the same page here - looks like you don't have that issue so it's all good for you.

I'm also experiencing the same or similar issue as OP - let's say it's a 50 F day outside and I just turn the temperature control to the lowest setting of 60 with A/C off - which should pump the outside ambient temperature air into the cabin (so that I could feel that 50 F cold air from the outside coming to the inside of the cabin). But that doesn't happen and I get the warm-ish 65-70 F air coming in. I have to then turn on the A/C to get colder air coming in. The re-circulation is off the whole time so your advice to turn off re-circulation doesn't apply here.

As a workaround I found that I can turn on the A/C for about 5 minutes or so and then turn it off and the cold air will continue pumping in for quite some time after that - but sometimes the warm air starts slowly creeping back in and at the end I have to turn on the A/C again - which is pretty annoying on a 50 F day. I should be able to get ambient temperature air from the outside to the inside of the cabin - why isn't that working as it should? Is the cabin air getting mixed up with the warm/hot engine bay air and then pumped in the cabin? I can't think of any other reason for this to happen.

 

A/C button = OFF
Auto Button = OFF
Recirc button = OFF

 

Yep, everything like you stated just now and I still get a 65-70 F warm air through the vents on a 45-50 F day. I don't feel it should work like that. I guess you are just lucky that everything works well on your car.