See my post #17 in this thread.

When i bought my x5 this was happening to me aswell. But when i reprogrammed the seat memory i had the a/c off, and it hasn't turned back on since. Try and reprogram your seat memory with the a/c off and see what it does.

Well that's good information about it only affecting the center vent. I have not heard that before... but everyone keeps saying that it's not a temp selector. Then in the next sentence, turning it to red makes it hotter and blue makes it colder. Isn't that the definition of a temp selector? :dunno:

The problem is, BMW does a piss poor job of explaining the wheel. When I got my E46, the dealer told me "If you want it hot, turn it twd red. When you want it cold, turn it twd blue." I mean we all know most sales people are morons, but this is ridiculous.

As for that little book in the glovebox that "tells me all about it," Here's a quote on pg. 109 in the Air Conditioning section: "With the serrated dial you can adjust the temperature of the incoming air:
>Turn toward blue: colder
>Turn toward red: warmer"

Brilliant.

Has anybody tried this yet? im still at work and cant wait to try this...

and it is working as LivinLoud said it, woohooo.... at last...
i want the the AC off everytime i start it, espcially now its cold outside...:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

and i celebrated way too early yesterday, this morning when i unlocked the X, got in, started her, AC was on... :loco: :rofl:

i give up, now i believe this feature can only be set by the dealer....

Well it did work for me but it may have been already done at the dealer prior to my ownership as I do believe the previous owner had some other things programmed already such as the DRL's. Sorry that it didnt work for you.

i will try it today ;)

I tried it and doesn't work

CaliColin,
The easiest way to understand the wheel in the centre is this- When in the full red position the centre vent will blow what ever temp air is required to achieve the selected temp on the climate system, in other words, on a hot day it will blow cold air to cool the car and then steadily get warmer when the selected temp is reached and vice versa on a cold day. If you get into the situation where the air blowing out of all vents is too warm (on a cold rainy night for instance) and you would like some cold air to blow on your face (for instance, on a cold rainy night and you are feeling tired), then you just start edging the selector wheel toward the blue direction untill you get the temp to the desired degree of coldness. Note, that this is only affects the centre vent, the other vents will keep blowing warm.
It is designed to keep you awake on long, cold drives at night when the climate control is pumping out sleep inducing, hot air to keep you warm.
Me? I leave it in the full hot position and let the climate control handle the heating/cooling.
I have had three BMW, and every owner's manual has had a very bad description on how this wheel works.
Colin.