Hopefully this will save someone the trouble of figuring out or, worse, dragging a MINI off to the dealer for a problem with a simple solution.

We have a 2006 MCS with the climate control HVAC unit.

This happened this morning when I dropped my son off at school.

This morning the numbers in the middle display that indicate the chosen temperature disappeared and the unit kicked in to the highest fan speed. I tried hitting some buttons (AUTO to get it back to the automatic setting and the "-" button to lower the fan speed) and neither had any effect. Then ALL the lights, on ALL the buttons came on and stayed on, and the unit showed an "AC" error where the numbers for selected temperature are usually displayed. (I'll assume AC stands for Air Conditioning.)

After getting the car back in the garage, I turned the engine off and then back on. The problem continued but with a "CC" error (presumably for Climate Control) and the indicator for fan speed showed one squiggly line.

I mentioned the problem to my wife and he said it had happened to her before. The cause is when the OEM cupholder is forcefully swung to the left and the bracket hits and depresses several HVAC control buttons at the same time. It turned out that my son had hit it with his back pack as he was getting out of the car.

So, back to the garage to try again. I moved the cup holder back to its normal, center position and started the car, and, go figure, the error codes are gone and the unit works fine.

 

Sounds like the solution is not hitting several HVAC buttons at the same time... I don't have that cupholder - can you install a 'bumper' close to the pivot point that will stop it from interacting with the HVAC?

 

Wow, that is a wierd issue. Glad I replaced my cupholder with the MINI Fini one and have it mounted down low. Thanks for sharing one more MINI idiosyncracy. On a side note, this reply should 'shift' me into fifth gear.