AC "control thingy" stuck
 

Circled in the pic below..

OK, so I know its not the technical term for it, but it's stuck. The AC "control thingy" in the front that you can scroll from blue/cold to red/hot only moves very little and only stays on the 1-3 blue dot range so I can't blow any heat from the front. any ideas on how I can fix this or pull it out to see what could be keeping it from moving to the red dots?

The 'thingy' is called a mixing wheel, or blending wheel, adjustment. It is entirely mechanical. Open it up and see what has come loose. It is just moving a flap to provide different mixes of hot/cold air flow, to that vent only. In the meantime, just select two other outlets, ie windshield and footwell, instead of the dash, or turn off the centre dash vent and use the two side dash vents.

Haha, Thanks!

How can I open this up? Would I have to take the radio out?

Before opening it... You do realize that this is a wheel with a lot of resistance to turning (at least on my car)? It will feel like it doen't want to move and if you do move it slightly, it may roll back to where it was. Be sure to put enough pressure on it to move it - without breaking it if it is indeed "stuck." How do you know the difference? Trial and error.

blktoptrvl: I can move it all the way to the 3rd blue dot and it will return to the 1st blue dot. However, I can only move it to the 2nd red dot but it will return to the 1st blue dot. There is a lot of resistance but it won't stay. So basically, I can't get any warm air to come out the main vents...only if I use the windshield or footwells. As you can imagine, it's pretty annoying.

Anyone know how I can remove it and take a closer look?

the stratification wheel on vehicles with navigation are prone to binding due to the placement of the board computer. what happens is the cable that runs to the hvac box is resting on top of the navigation board monitor, or next to the reinforcement bar which causes it to bind. The easiest way to check this is to remove the navigation board monitor cover, and then remove the 4 torx screws to lift up the screen. Check the stratification wheel now and see if it is working correctly now. If it does not work correctly, you must remove the glove box, and check if the tab that connects to the hvac box has cracked off.

BMW calls it "center knurled wheel" in the E53 owners manual. But BMW USA also calls it a "stratification wheel". Some call it a blending wheel too. I made a short video explaining it:

https://youtu.be/7ILb5-hZ_do

"Control Thingy" must be in the BMW North Carolina Owners Manual. I'm checking for references to a "Whacha-ma-call-it", "Somethin or other", and "Do Hickey" in my BMW Texas Owners Manual. :bustingup

That wheel is connected to stratification flap which controls how much air to face vents is routed via heater core (like to every other vent) or bypassed before the heater core. So it the wheel is set to max red the stratification flap is closed and air from the face vents is the same as from every other vent.

Let me start by saying that I don't know the answer to this question, I (thankfully) have never had to touch that are of my X5 - but is it possible that something has "invaded" the fresh air intake and has the flap obstructed, or is the fan in the way? Any chance of getting a usb snake light in there and taking a look? Cabin air filter would have to come out minimum, and maybe the bulk-head if you really wanted to get in at it easily - if it's possible?