Has anyone ever had the heater get "stuck on" in their Mini?

Started my Mini today. It was a bit chilly in the garage, 54 showing on the tach. I turned on the seat heater, and pressed the auto button with the temp setting at 72 to turn on the heater. I then hit the air conditioner button to turn off the ac. Next I pressed the auto recirculate button. After a few minutes, warm air is coming out of the vents. The car seems to always wait until there is warm enough water coming into the heater coil before turning on the fan. A nice feature.

I left my house to do a couple errands, driving about 15 minutes to get to the store I was going to. On the way, the heater seems to be working just fine. I turn off the seat heater and notice it seems like the air is still very warm coming from the vents. I turned the heater down to 68, which is where I usually leave it. A couple minutes go by and it's still blowing hot air, the inside of the car is getting quite warm. This is odd as it usually blows cool air when set at 68. I drop it to the minimum setting of LO, but left it in auto mode. The fan kicks up to high, but instead of cooler air, only hot air is coming out. I mean hot, not warm.

I slow the fan speed down, shutting off the auto mode and the auto recirc mode. The car is still blowing hot air. It's 56 outside, the air through the vents should be near that temperature. Next I try turning on the air conditioner. Press that snowflake, I feel the compressor kick on..still blowing hot air...3 or 4 minutes later, still blowing hot air.

I get to the store, sit in the parking lot idling, trying to shut off the heat. Any fan speed and any temperature. ac on or off, only hot air is coming through the vents. Hot like the heater is on the highest setting.

Off the to store, come back out 15 minutes later; why is it when a store has 6 checkouts and 15 people in line, only 1 is open... Grrr, anyway, at least I could admire my Mini through the glass windows while waiting in line.

Back to the car...still set on LO, manual mode. I fire it up and cooler air is now coming through the vents. Not as cool as outside, but not hot anyway. Drive it home and while it wasn't blowing full hot, the air never felt as cold as outside, which it normally does when set to LO.

Anyone seen a malfunction like this? My car does has a code stored in it which refers to the ambient air temp sensor. The Scangauge II read it. I wonder if that has something to do with this. The code didn't happen today, it was previously stored in the car's system for at least the last month or two. The car's climate system has worked perfectly up til today.

 

Sounds like the Dealer needs to check the code out. We just picked up Molly yesterday and the system is a bit confusing, but I'd say yours has issues.

Good Luck!!

 

Minidrvr, if it happens again, I'd definitely take it to the dealer. There's so much software that runs in the cars these days that it's probably not out of the ordinary for it to get into a glitch state once in a blue moon.

 

That's what I was thinking as well. Some kind of computer malfunction. I now refer to it as "my car had a British moment."