My family and I have been driving around and my son began complaining of his feet getting very hot....As we were driving on the freeway, I reached down just unde my left knee and felt much forced heat being vented from left hand side of the center consol while the AAC was at 68.

I turned the AAC (auto) off and hot air was still vented again. I turned it on (blowing from front) and the bottom was still venting. The only way the bottom would stop blowing hot air was to put the temp. to lowest and have it blow from the bottom (cold feet).

At times I could reproduce the issue and at times I could not.

My wife thins the hot air is coming from the firewall. But it clearly is coming from (mostly) drivers side bottoms. What ya think???

Warranty??? My mistake??? Help please and thanks in advance

MiniBlue

 

MiniBlue, I like your specs...you're driving my car (except for the HK).

 

I don't think it's fair to suspect the climate control team of smoking illicit drugs. Clearly they were experimenting with intravenous substances but I don't see any evidence of smoking.

It's such a shame to have to manually control the thing. My last car had climate control and I never once pressed a button in all the years I owned it. It did everything automatically and perfectly -- from waiting 'till the engine warmed up, to gently easing in the heat the very instant the thermostat popped, to defrosting the windows *and* mirrors as needed. Hell, it even automatically turned off the AC compressor when I overheated. The MINI climate control does absolutely nothing for me -- it can't even figure out what blower speed to use or when to use it. Worthless.

 

My AC never gets really cold, just kinda cool. WHY IS THAT????

 

I too cannot understand the system. My issue is that in the upper vent mode, the air volume coming from the center outlets is WAY lower than the volume exiting the side outlets. I've closed the vent in the glove box and when I am alone in the car, I close the outboard passenger vent as well. The large vent on the top of the dash seems to allow way too much flow. Anyone know how to close this vent?

 

It's actually WORSE than worthless, because you end up having to do much more work than if you just had the stupid dials to begin with. I can't NOT recommend this option enough! :evil:

 

I can only add to the confusion. I've had my car for over 10 months and here's what I've learned. When the recirculating light is ON, it's letting in fresh air. When the light is OFF, the system actually gets plenty cold. In other words, it seems to work backwards. The dealer is not even sure how it's suppose to work. To add to the confusion, if you want vents ONLY(no A/C or heat or fan. You have to turn the system ON, make sure the recirculation light is ON, then shut the system OFF, then shut the car OFF. The next time you start the car you will have vents only. One last bit of confusion, the vents may be cool fresh air or warm fresh air depending on what the temp was last set at. Sooo, if you want cool vents make sure you set the temp LOW before you shut the system and the car off. the next morning you will have outside temp vents. I hope that clears things up for everybody.
MB

 

When my a/c and heat is off, I still feel heat coming in the car! I have to turn the a/c/heat back on, turn it all the way to lo, then turn i back off to get rid of the heat. I am clueless as to what is going on with that!

 

Among all the responses I got Mellymell is the closest to what I'm experiencing. Why don't we do some trouble shooting and figure it out....This is very important as we have to live with it all the time. I sure won't want heat in 100 degrees in the desert.

Why don't we all do some experiments and post it here....Thanks

 

I set my auto AC to 66 when i bought it and have rarely touched it since, except to turn it off when its really nice out. Maybe i should'nt tempt fate by messing with it much. :???:

 

I have yet to use the Auto AC in the heat, but I've used it all winter, and it seems to get confused at moderate temps.

I'll give it a summer and see how it goes, but just as a preemptive question, is it a plug-n-play swap for the manual unit, or is there more involved?

 

The ACC has been a point of contention between me and the Mini. When I first got it and turned it on it would only blow on the windscreen. This made me angry-then I read the manual. It is supposed to do that-O.K. i can live with this. Sometimes it blows in the windscreen sometimes in the cabin. I set it to a degree-74 for example and it comes on but the Auto light is not on-So I am guessing this is the manual setting. Seems strange to me that you can turn the ACC dial make it blow out air at or close to that temp and it isn't on. So I have given up on it and hope it works in the winter-the windows and sunroof is enough for me to keep cool. Had a car for 6 years with no AC so I can live with a well ventilated car.

 

I can see us writing to BMW for a recall...though usually recalls are for safty issues....any ideas?

 

I can claim that my big toe was burnt badly in summer months..

 

The problem is, there is no heater valve to shut off the hot water to the heater core. I depends on doors or flaps closing off the heat to the cabin. I've been fussing with this for 10 months. If you don't want heat in the cabin, you have to set the A/C to low before you shut things off or heat will still come in.
MB

 

I sure wish I knew what triggers MINIUSA to chime in on these boards, as THIS would seem to be a subject that should get some attention. It keeps coming up and offers an excellent (and I have to say largely justified) reason for folks to end up trashing MINI/BMW.

Here's what they should do... MINIUSA (assuming it's only us North Americans who can't figure this frigging thing out...I guess the rest of the world market isn't having this problem) should create a new, single page, graphical "How To" sheet on operating the AAC. And then distribute it to us via mail (email?) and the dealer-service network. The current explanation in the manual doesn't work. Dealers CANNOT explain this system (I've had mine give me the "shrug...it's wacked!" treatment). But you know, someone programmed it to do SOMETHING...we just need to be told what!

Come on MINIUSA, this isn't so hard is it???

 

Hated the Auto A/C when we first got it in late late Jan, but have since figured it out. I'm satisfied with it now, it doesn't work as well as the Auto A/C in my 2000 Jimmy, but I'm satisfied with it now. That being said, I expected a better system in this car than what its got.

I keep it set between 68 and 72 and may shift it depending on my particular comfort level at the moment. At those temps it keeps the interior comfortable, the windows clear, and there are no hurricane like blasts coming from the vents. As for the front defroster, if you need to turn it on manually, press and hold the button for a few seconds and the fan will slow from the Jet Engine setting, to a much more tolerable slower fan speed.

For each Auto A/C system there is a "sweet spot," those magic temperatures that the system keeps the car comfortable at no matter what the exterior temperature is, with a short blast on high usually shortly after starting the car to get the interior temperature down/up into its termperate zone. For my Jimmy that's between 74 and 76, for the MINI it appears to be 68 and 72, and that has been for temps in the single digits, up to yesterday's 65 degree high in DC.

When we first got the car, we rarely put the Auto A/C into auto, doing so resulted in the fan running at the Jet Engine setting. That was becuase or MA told us to set the temp for 78-82 during the cold weather, then we tried 74-76, it wasn't until we backed the system down to 68-72 that we found the "sweet spot"

 

>>just as a preemptive question, is it a plug-n-play swap for the manual unit, or is there more involved?<<

I've been wondering this all along. I'd be willing to pay $100 right now to get rid of this system and have the manual dials like I wanted in the first place. It would be great if it was possible to arrange a trade with another MINI owner, the manual system for the auto. Somehow I doubt that this is possible, however...

 

Does anyone know if the AAC's control logic is contained within the unit, or is it controlled by the main on-board computer on the MINI?

If it is the later, a software update would fix the problems. If it is the former, we're stuck with it.

See ya,
JS

 

Minzila, there is actually a pretty simple way to get vents only - with no fan or AC. First, choose which vents you want (upper, lower, or both), then set the temp all the way to "LO", and then turn the fan all the way down. I've been doing this and it seems to work fine - as long as the AC is off, air comes in at whatever temperature it is outside.

So far, the AUTO mode has worked well for me when it is cold out. I haven't had my car long enough to see how it works in the summer heat, though. We'll see...

 

I had a wierd thing happen the other day - I tried turning the AC on and it did nothing. It wasn't until after I turned the car off and then back on again that it worked. Might I have a short? I haven't experienced this again... so who knows.

 

>>Does anyone know if the AAC's control logic is contained within the unit, or is it controlled by the main on-board computer on the MINI?
>>
>>If it is the later, a software update would fix the problems. If it is the former, we're stuck with it.


Great Q! :smile:

 

>>Minzila, there is actually a pretty simple way to get vents only - with no fan or AC. First, choose which vents you want (upper, lower, or both), then set the temp all the way to "LO", and then turn the fan all the way down.

Thanks for the tip!!

 

So, if I just press the little icicle button to turn off the AC I'll get heat?
And the only way to avoid heat is to crank and crank the dial until it bottoms out at some "LO" setting *before* turning off the AC?

 

Thanks jwtucker, I will try that. I thought however, that if you have the temp set on low, the system was ON. My car has a 1/02 build date and I thought that it worked differently that newer cars, or should I say DIDN'T WORK like the newer cars.
MB