Well... that didn't take long! It seems my honeymoon period of MINI ownership is over. It's been extremely hot here in the Tampa Bay area of Florida the last few days (94+ with 80% humidity and no clouds, let alone rain) and my MINI has started to randomly turn on the heat with the A/C on! It only lasts for 30 seconds or so before returning to it's senses, but it seems the car's thermostatic schizophrenia is intensifying, with episodes coming more often. It happens when parked or when driving. I can also hear the high speed fan cycling on and off while the heat is pouring out of the vents and so far as I can tell, the compressor is on as well. I even managed to stop the car during an episode and pop the hood to check, and yep. The compressor was running. However, by the time I got back in the car it was cooling again so I really can't be 100% sure. Is this a common fault? Is the blend door actuator failing? Is it the HVAC controls in the dash? Is it the result of the ghosts of Robert Bosch and Joseph Lucas having some sort of chimera lovechild that has now chosen to demonically possess my little MINI? The whole thing is making me question my decision to take a vacation to the Smokey Mountains in the thing a few weeks from now should the electrical demon lovechild chose to rear it's ugly head when I am far from home and far from my normal collection of tools!

 

No one has any ideas?

 

I totally suck at electrics so I can be of no help whatsoever.

But I wanted to compliment you on the writing!

GOOD STUFF!
This sentence is especially wonderful and made me smile:


It seems many other old ghosts haunt these things too because there's a long list of quirky irks.

Do you have manual or automatic climate control?

Could be some 5¢ potentiometer with intermittent fails, which wouldn't surprise me because MINI seems to be filled to the gills with nickel & dime parts that always need replacing.

The amount of money I've spent on my 2006 JCW getting it up to snuff (still a work-in-progress) is absolutely absurd and beyond all logic, yet I still love the damn thing!

Friggin' minis.

They're like a simultaneous heaven & hell!
LOL





If it wasn't for NAM I'd be having a clusterfug of a time!

Your problem has been reported before so I'm sure there is a solution, unless of course it falls under the umbrella of oh, it's a MINI thing, as when some things just can't seem to be "fixed" and folds into the rubric of the quirk index.

The older threads usually have more responses,
for example:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...e-problem.html

Often good fixes are cited, but sometimes unresolved - regardless there can be found troubleshooting tips and such stuff.

You might be on the right track suspecting the blend door thang:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...lap-stuck.html

This post may help as it describes how to go into HVAC diag test mode ,
plus certain parameters for A/C behavior (compressor cut-out criteria),
if you haven't already tried that to see if it may offer up any clues:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post3217293

.

 

Thanks for the links. It has the automatic climate control in it that I now wish I had grabbed a $25 spare of when there was one in the U Pull It. I had pulled mine apart though, before I started driving it. It had showed signs of a I-hope-that-was-soda spill on it and the prior owners had not been able to clean it properly. I wound up cleaning a nice fur ball of dust, hair and soda off the thermistor with some IPA (I cleaned the whole circuit board) as well as cleaning the casing and buttons by soaking off the sticky mess in a bucket of water. (In fact, I disassembled quite a few things to clean this mess out of the cracks. For a clean car, it sure was dirty!) Why BMW does not use a conformal coating on it's boards I will never know...

 

Yep,
spares are always good to have on hand, problem is that you never know and inevitably there ends up being some oddball fault that wasn't anticipated, so such stuff goes on the junkyard list of things to pick up.

Does your car have the factory cupholder glued to the downtube? Those are notorious for liquid spillage.
Along with the factory armrest, it was the first thing I removed from my car.




I wholeheartedly support the use of good beer!





A fine India Pale Ale is a good thing to have when fiddling with these little Minis.

 

What's funny is that you removed the very things I am trying to put in! I have the console ready to go in and I am searching for the cupholder. My morning dose of Dunkin Donuts coffee isn't going to hold itself! However, I do think it had the cup holder at one point since I can see it's ghostly remains on the downtube where it was once installed.

Also, to clarify for the tens of people who will read this thread in the future and think I used beer to clean a circuit board, IPA stands for IsoPropyl Alcohol. So, yes. You can and should use rubbing alcohol to clean your circuit boards. Beer will just make it look like someone peed on it once it dries.

 

It is the blend door actuator. It is located behind the glove compartment and has a rod that runs down to the blend door towards the bottom of the plenum. The quick fix is to get it in the right position and unplug the actuator so it won't move anymore. This will put it in permanent air conditioning mode. The real fix is a new actuator, but in a pinch it can be locked 8n place by simply unplugging it when in the position you want.