I'm not sure if I'm nuts or not so I figured this would be a good place to start before I called in the warranty boys.

1. When I hit the front defroster button it flashes, the air comes on full blast but the little light flashes. Is that normal? Just curious because none of the other lights flash. Also, and this is more of a complaint, why can't we adjust the volume of air comming out. I would have liked a nice gentle breeze instead of the hurrican I got yesterday.

2. This bugs the crap out of me and I hope its not normal. Here is the situation, start the car and I don't want any air, So I hit the recirc button and the climate control comes on. ok, hit the off button and the a/c comes on. Hit the a/c button to turn it off and the climate control comes on. I can never get the recirc to be on by its self. unless, for some strange reason it comes on by its self when i turn on the car sometimes. What else bugs me is that with everything off, i get a blast out of the vents of random temperature air. I can't win

Any ideas?

 

Press and HOLD the defrost button and it will stop flashing and you will now have control over the fan speed. You can also select air at you feet along with the defrost air in this mode.

As for the recirc issue, I will select recirc and set the temp down before turning off the a/c -heat to prevent hot air from wafting out of the vents. Eventually the mode will change by itself to recirc, I have found no reliable way to force this, other than it will be in that mode if the climate control system was turned off before shutting the car down; a resrat will have it in the recirc 'standby' mode.

 

Cool, thanks.

I thought I was going nuts. I was also kinda worried that my satalite reciever wiped out the dash computer again. That would have sucked bad.

 

greatbear your awsome, i have had the same question for quite some time now, but was too lazy to post it up.

 

Holding the defroster button for 5+ seconds is the trick. I had to show my salesman that.
Why does MINI make it so complicated? Well, for this we will have to thank the American consumers again.
On the pre-96 3 series, BMW had a nicely laid out manual limate control panel. It even has a little picture on the side to remind you how to most efficiently defrost your front windshield. The problem is American consumers are just too lazy to read the manual, and that little helpful picture confuses people. So in 1996 when BMW redesigned the climate control panel, they added that "one button touch" to defrost. Instead of telling you how to set up the panel for max defrost, now you only have to press that one button. Since having two buttons, one for "express defrost", and another one for "sending air to the windshield", would be too complicated for Americans, BMW combined them into one button. Since they think you are most likely using "auto" anyway, and "sending air to windshield" will be rarely used, they made it extra hard to activate.
This cryptic control logic then filters down to our MINI......

 

What I wish is that the A/C would not be activated when auto is pushed so that I don't have to deactivate it. This happens generally when I select a fan speed, as there is no way to 'deselect' it like you can when re-directing air flow. When you simply redirect without changing air speed, you can simply repress the 'directional' button to deselect it and thereby reactivate the 'auto'. But, when you wish to adjust fan speed and then want to allow to the computer to take over the fan speed, you must first press auto and then the snowflake to deactivate the AC. What I wish is that there were some sort of AC memory. Most people don't wish for AC at 34 deg F.

 

>>Also, and this is more of a complaint, why can't we adjust the volume of air >>comming out. I would have liked a nice gentle breeze instead of the hurrican I >>got yesterday.

You can, just adjust the vent flow **** to say 50% or so and you won't get the hurricane blowing at you. I do this to prevent my contacts from drying out.

 

>> Most people don't wish for AC at 34 deg F.

Actually, they should. What a lot of people don't realize is that A/C does NOT necessarily mean cold air. It means DRY air. If you need quick defrosting/defogging, A/C with the temp set on hot is the best way to do it.

 

Right-o. But, you're covered there with the one-touch defroster. And, for general heat in the winter you certainly don't need the A/C. I shouldn't ever need this button in the winter.