HI everyone!

Just purchased my first bmw 2006 530i. I love it! I am however having trouble with the heating. The middle climate gauge, the one that has the "off" button where you control the volume of the heat comming out. The red LED under the knob, which is the parked ventaltion light is always on, even when I drive the car. Looks like there are 2 other symbols on each side of it, and I never see them light up.

I cant seem to get any hot air when I drive. IS there a trick to turning on the heat?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

brandon-

 

there are two knobs on the left and right of the "off" knob. turn them to whatever temperature you want.

 

Try pressing the center button on your temp control knob. This will open up another temp control that will adjust the vent settings. Once pressed you should see a new screen appear and then turn your iDrive controller. Red is hot and so on...

 

Do you have access to an owner's manual? This forum has electronic copies (PDF) if not. Look for the section called "A Congenial Climate" (in my 2004 manual at least). The only setting I have ever fiddled with in iDrive is the Intensity of the Automatic Programs. I moved it from Soft to Medium. From that point, use the dash buttons exclusively. The two outer dials are obviously dual zone temperature controls. The middle dial is the manual fan speed control. To the right of the fan speed dial are three buttons. For fully automatic operation, just make sure all three green LEDs are illuminated. Then just use the temperature dials to get the climate you desire. You can override the fan speed with the middle dial, and the red LED around the dial will come on and the middle green "auto" LED will go out. To return to Auto mode, just press the middle green LED button again.

There are people who talk about adjusting the distribution settings in iDrive, but I have not found this necessary.

 

I've had problems heating my car up as well when first starting up. I've found if you use the front window defroster it heats the inside temperature up quickly and then i turn it off - or down and let the climate control take over.