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      10-19-2012, 03:36 PM   #7
colson79
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Drives: 2012 X3 35i DSB
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Wisconsin

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cropwell View Post
Took car into dealers and asked to talk to one of the technical guys. The chief technical guy looked at it and asked me what settings I was using- to which I replied automatic as on all previous BMW's.

He said that he never uses the automatic setting and uses the manual flow controls on the LHS of the dash, reason being that the auto air con is now different on the X3.He told me that they have recently been advised by BMW that customers had been complaining about the heating & ventilation not realising it works in a different way. I pointed out that it would have been helpful to point this out at handover as the salesman said I wont need to go over the heating controls as you have had BMW's before !

He also told me that with the auto setting the flaps which control the heat and airflow do not allow them to be fully open so he uses the manual controls.
To get any sort of flow on auto you need to set the auto fan setting quite high, I think there are about 6 settings which come up as ascenting bars on the display when you press the fan control.

I must admit that I had this on the second setting as in the past on other BMW's this seemed top work fine and the heating automatically increased the fan speed and temperature and I never had to bother adjusting it much.
Now need to spend more time fiddling with controls to get more airflow/heat, it does work but I thought the idea of climate control was that it was automatic?

I was told that the new system is supposed to be more technically advanced,
not sure in what respect as it does not seem to work as effectively as before-a case of ' if it ain't broke don't fix it'.
Sometimes BMW technology can cause more problems than it solves.

When I first got my X3 I used to have my settings on automatic and the fan on the 2nd speed setting like you did. I also didn't think it worked very well because if it was really cold or hot the fan speed never blew very hard at all. Now I just leave it on automatic and the fan speed setting maxed out and it seems to work very well. It is as if the the fan speed setting is for the max speed in automatic mode. If it is set at 2 it will never blow harder than 2 but it it is at 6 it will blow up to max speed. Now if it is really hot when I get into my X3 the fan will start out blowing at max speed and gradually slow down as the car cools, like you would expect in auto mode.
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