| Hi there,
I dont want to sound patronising, but you do realise that it does more than just chill the air dont you?
You should be able to see it doing a really impressive demisting job and it works whenever the button is pushed in, even if dialled to "hot".
I think its also the case that it takes a short while for the whole system to get icy-cool - you have to wait for the venting pipes to be non-warm before it will be really cold!
I have the manual aircon on my MINI too - only time i've used it so far is when i get back into the warm car after the jetwash (me soaking!) and the car instantly mists up. Aircon on - misting goes straight away. Fab! | 
