[howardpm]

Ok, so going from manual climate control to automatic must be to much for me. First of all I can figure out how to get the automatic climate control working. For instance I set it to 80 just to test and no heat was coming out at all. Though if I hit one of the Air distrubution buttons then I get the hot air, but that turns off the auto climate control. If I start to press the blower button. The hot air comes out too but again that turns off the auto Climate control.


Also for the Individual air distrubtion you got. a down arrow, a forward arrow and a up arrow. How come there is no down and forward arrow like on the manual? Is it not possible to have air coming from the floor and the top?


Hope some of this made some sense. It confuses me.

 

[MadisonMini]

I know, the automatic AC is confusing to me too.

What I've figured out so far:

1)The "auto" button turns the AC on, no matter what temp you chose, I suppose this is the "demist" part of the deal since the AC is a dehumidifior. You can "deselect" the AC part and still have the auto function going (i just went out to my car and this works). Air blows from the dash near the windshield and the floor.

2)In regards to the UP,Face,Down buttons on the right hand side. Pressing any of these disables the left sided auto button. The right sided buttons I suppose are a manual control. With these buttons, you can chose them alone (ex down only) or in pairs (UP and down, up and face, face and down).

Hope this is what you're looking for. I had to go out to my car after reading your post take make sure I knew what I was talking about, even though I've had the car for over a month now. Totally confusing.

 

[GBMINI]

One other thing ...
If you ask for lots of heat the auto system will almost always direct it to your feet only - so maybe when you did your test it was blowing "down below" and you did not notice ...

 

[MediocreFred]

I've had my MC for about three weeks now and have a related question.

Even if I've turned off Auto AC and have used the blower switch to turn that off as well (basically all the lights are off and there is no temp displayed in the middle), when I am driving, I still have hot air blowing out of the vents on the top of the dash.

No air comes out when the car is stationary, but, when I am moving, I get hot air coming out of the top vents - and the amount of air is more if I am going faster. This is like in other cars with manual AC where you open the vents (as in "not recirculate"), but, turn off the AC - except that with a manual AC, you can set the temperature without turning on the AC and the air blowing in from the outside through the vents (non-recirc mode, AC off) is either heated or not.

In the winter, this is fine - I don't mind the hot air blowing in even with the AC off. But, I am worried about the summer. Is there any way to control the temperature of the air from the dash-top vents when the auto-AC is off? The only way that I know of to turn off the non-recirc mode is by pressing the "Recirculate" button on the AC panel - but, this turns on the temperature setting and the Auto AC lights.

So, is there any way to turn off the dash-top vents without turing on the AC?

Thanks,
-MediocreFred.

 

[GBMINI]

Your analogy with manual a/c is correct.
Think of the auto a/c as just a "robot" that turns that heat knob for you to get the right temperature.
What you want to do is make the robot turn the knob down to minimum before you switch off the system - you can do that by asking for min temperature ("LO") then switching off ...
Alternatively, never switch off completely - just turn it down to minimum fan speed.

 

[MediocreFred]

GBMini,

Thanks for the quick reply. OK, I'll give that a try. While I may be able to turn the temperature down, is it possible to close the vent (no-recirc mode) without turning on the Auto AC? The reason I ask is that every so often I find myself behind either a truck belching bluish-black semi-combusted diesel fumes or in an area that has a pungent biological odor (manure-like) for a couple of miles.

Right now, the only way I know of is to press the <Recirc> button which turns on the AC and the fans and then turn off the fans. In my previous cars with manual AC, I would just move the slider to the <Recirc> position. Is there an easier way to do this with my MINI?

Thanks,
MediocreFred.

 

[GBMINI]

My guess would be that, like the heat, when you turn auto a/c off everything stays as it was. So you could press recirc to close the vents, then turn the auto a/c off and the recirc should remain?

But my auto a/c equipped MINI has been gone since Feb '03 so I can't check it out ...

 

[howardpm]

hmmm

Looks like your right. When the AC Climate Control for heat is on it only comes out the bottom. When you want cold air it comes from the top. Kind odd thats how it works but I guess most people would rather have cold air blowing on them and since heat rises if its coming from the bottom it works better.

 

[Pelican18TQA4]

To prevent hot air from entering the cabin when the climate control is off, hit the recirculate button before shutting off the climate control.

 

[IML337]

before shutting off the climate control.

(using the fan button to stop it - don't think pressing "off" will leave the vents in recirc mode?)

you'll end up with the temp displaying in the centre, the recirc light on, and no other lights on

However doing this for long periods can make the air trapped inside the system get all humid, so when you first turn the air back on your windscreen fogs up for a few seconds

 

[Grimbo]

All sounds very similar to the climatronic in my Golf GTI. The robot analogy above is a good one.

Took me a while to get used to it, but when climate is on Auto (in the Golf) the only control you have is temp. It will then turn on the heater/cooler and the fan to get the temp to what you've selected then it'll calm down and just maintain it. You can usually increase/decrease the fan speed by one notch but after that it goes out of auto mode, same if you press the air direction buttons.
When it trying to warm the car up, it'll blow air downwards and cooling out of the dash vents, same as Mini.
Additionally recirc and windscreen demist also turn on the AC compressor, even if you've got it set to Econ (compressor off)

I just generally leave it alone and in Auto mode, usually between 18 and 22 degrees C. The first hurdle to overcome is to not just whack the temp up to full like you'd do with a manual heater when you're cold. Just set it to the temp you like to be ideally and let the robot do the rest for you.

This is a big assumption hoping the Mini's works the same!! Hope it does though, I'm getting one delivered in March, with auto-aircon