I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, due to mis-reading the non-problem as one
 

Now that I've thought about it, my "auto" button may have been operating as designed all along, but perhaps the aftermarket button I used wasn't seating quite right, and that's why the light was intermittently coming on.

I must've seated it properly when I jabbed it hard, multiple times, in my frustration over losing the A/C in hot weather, and now I see the light "on" when it should be "on".

Why the heck do you guys want the climate control "off" on startup ??

Not climate control - AC.

Mine is programmed to return the climate control to previous settings on startup - meaning if I turn the AC off, it stays off (until I turn it back on again).

Because I didn't request it to be on. Usually I drive with the windows down.

Do you want the windshield wipers to come on when you start the car? :D

I think you can code it to be off vs. minimum but I've only seen/used BMW that will go to minimum fan speed after power cycle the car.

I did read that you meant for the climate to stay off. And like you say. If you had a reason to turn it off at 4:05 pm why wouldn't you want to also have it off at 4:09 pm just because you jumped out of the car to add gas or whatever.

It really doesn't make sense that it would be arbitrarily different than what you set it to. I've wondered why that's the default when it interfered with troubleshooting. Some days I've turned off the climate a dozen times in one session of troubleshooting, most likely to save battery when the engine isn't running but I needed to cycle the ignition off and on.

Similarly when I turn off the ac it makes zero sense for the AC to come back on when I didn't ask just because I turned the engine off and back on that was the first thing I coded out when I got bimmercode.

Mine returns to previous settings like wpoll and I thought that was default but I probably coded it that way as well. Actually my re-start settings don't take on changes until they have been used a couple of times so you can make a one time change and it will still re-start at the previous restart settings until you change it a second or third time. I think that's all in the key programming and is also tied to each key accordingly. Works perfect for me anyway.

Important point; most of those settings are tied to the key.

Same same. Kinda handy actually.

If you own one of these cars for long, you get good at swapping these things out. :rolleyes:

Along with PTSD related to opening the doors.. :rofl:

Here is the point that I'm glad that's mentioned....this also includes window, radio and wiper settings if I recall correctly.
It was just yesterday that I was monkeying around requesting that center air and foot air on at the same time, but with the addition of auto! Initially it can be set, but I discover only until the key is used to lock the settings in....just yesterday.