Does your A/C only work in "auto" mode?

[Bryan330i]

My recirculating control button has never worked the entire time I have had my car. I was told this control DOES NOT work when the A/C is on. On my last and most recent visit to the dealership I was told that the A/C ONLY works in “Auto” mode and that the recirculating control only work as a vent control and is intentionally unavailable during other uses such as times of A/C usage.

This seems ridiculous but I thought I would check here and see if this is true. After my last repair the “Auto” setting will not turn off under any circumstances but prior to my last visit the “Auto” function would not stay on.

So I guess what I am wanting to know is if you can control the recirculating function with the A/C on. I have NEVER been able to do this. My recirculating button does nothing, no light, no change, nothing.

 

[Wadula]

my recircthing button works with and without A/C on. It has nothing to do with th A/C anyway. Actually it makes more sense to get both systems running at a time. during rain for example the windows will fog when you run recirc but not A/C.

 

[330i and like it]

Your dealer is full of it! It works on mine

 

[bmwrocks]

Works on mine too. At least the little green LEDs work. I have never actually listened to see if the air flow changes as I press it though. I leave everything in AUTO all the time. I have pressed the airflow button just out of curiosity but I always return it to AUTO.

Edit: By the way my A/C does work regardless of fan setting. I get out of AUTO mode by pressing the fan button and then selecting a fan speed. The A/C snowflake on mine is independent of this. In fact I turn the whole system off by decreasing the fan speed until it shuts off....doesn't everyone do this???!!!

 

[AIO]

The recirculating control button should work independent of the status of the A/C.

 

[Bryan330i]

Thanks for the responses.

I tried mine again today and it absolutely does not work. The thing that sucks is I can only run on recirculation. So today at 5AM when all I really needed was a bit of outside air the fact that it does not work correctly really aggravates me. I think the dealer is just avoiding replacing the unit but I should not be in for climate control issues every few months.

 

[Bryan330i]

Edit: By the way my A/C does work regardless of fan setting. I get out of AUTO mode by pressing the fan button and then selecting a fan speed. The A/C snowflake on mine is independent of this. In fact I turn the whole system off by decreasing the fan speed until it shuts off....doesn't everyone do this???!!!

I shut mine off by decreasing the fan speed until it shuts off. But when I turn mine back on it goes into auto and I lose control of the function until I shut it off again. Mine will always revert to auto regardless of what I do with the fan when it's on. But mine has been reprogrammed so many times who the hell even knows what they have fked up on the thing.

 

[AIO]

And BTW, when I was ordering my car, I went for manual A/C, not automatic. Not because it's a bit cheaper but because I feel more in control that way. Also, it's easier to change settings while cruising at 80 mph.

 

[bmwrocks]

My recirc button always changes modes no matter what the fan or vent output is set to. By vent output I mean the buttons on the left of the climate panel you can select manually (vs. auto).
Which brings me my next observation(s). There are three separately controlled auto settings. One for the fan, one for the vent output, and one for the air source (recirc, fresh, auto). I think if you select auto fan you also get auto temperature. You will notice that the auto LED is lit as long as you have either auto fan or auto vent output or both. So turning off auto fan will leave the auto LED lit as long as you haven't manually selected a vent output. This reverts the temperature output to be "old style" like seperately controlling fan and temperature.
The recirc button is independent of the auto modes (I think, I haven't tested this specifically now that I think about it). It has the auto feature of its own, but is not tied to selecting the other auto modes.
I noticed that pressing the auto button does not toggle any auto mode. Maybe that is what you are experiencing saying it is always in auto?
I am sure this is all in the manual, but is it any more understandable than the gibberish I just wrote??