My MCS is all of 48 hours old, and has about 300 miles.

I have the climate control, and I'm a Yankee living in FL. Since it's relatively nice out, I've been leaving the system turned off. I've noticed that there's a lot of heat coming out of the vents, even though the whole climate control system is shut down. It's as if the air in the ducts are picking up heat from the engine.

Is this normal? Have other people noticed this too? I wouldn't say it's really a "problem," just kind of weird. I'll be driving along with the windows down, and suddenly feel hot breath from the vent. I've never experienced anything like this in any other car. Maybe the ducts just pick up heat on account of everything in the engine bay being squeezed in so tightly.

Anyway, any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

If you have ACC this is normal. To fix it, just turn on the ACC and set the temp to like 60. Let the system start the AC and let it blow. Then turn the system back off. This should move the vent positions from heater to the AC and now it should stop pushing hot air into the cabin.

 

So if you turn the ACC off after it's been set to heat, it will keep leaking heat? Weird.

I'll try turning up the AC before I shut it down.

Thanks!

 

I have have the same leaking problem. I thought it was a problem and was going to ask to see if it needed to be fixed. The solution another MINI owner told was that it was trying to keep the temp at the last setting although it was off. As dom said ajust to temp you want then turn off ac.

 

Just for the record, your suggested solution worked, Dominic. I cranked up the a/c until it was blasting cold air, and then turned the ACC off. No more heat bleeding out of the vents!

Thanks, dude!