Now that you figured out the A/C, you can get blasted in the face with the smell of moldy socks!! lol

The A/C is pretty bad in the E70. It was bad in my 2007 3.0si, and it's almost as bad in my 2008 4.8i. It was worse in my 2006 E90 (330i). It seems like all "new" models have über-crappy climate control systems (must be software related, again!)

No matter what setting I use (AUTO, more blue bars,etc..) I have almost 0 airflow out of the side vents by the driver & passenger front windows. The air is pretty cold, but unless I use MAX A/C, the airflow is never really strong. The BIG problem is that on MAX, you cannot hear the radio, and don't even try to have a conversation with anyone in the car.

While I "appreciate" BMW Engineer efforts with their i-Drive "options" cough, cough, for the A/C...they are just confusing, poor and honestly they just don't work.

Mercedes, Lexus, Audi and surprisingly Ford all have superior Climate Controls compared to BMW.

Although I found the blue and red bars the first time I played with it, I still find the whole idrive-integrated climate system to be confusing. Too much detail and not enough difference, in my opinion.

I couldn’t agree with more.:thumbup: :thumbup: :iagree:

Does anyone know whether a software update resolves this issue? The issue occurs intermittently for me, and it seems a reboot of the car makes it go away for a while. That makes me think this is a bug in the software (I'm assuming the A/C flow is controlled by the software - please let me know if you think otherwise). Has anyone had their software updated and seen this issue go away?

it makes sense to me. Hot air rises. No need to keep the higher side vents flowing when heating. Perhaps the side vents becomes activated to cool the warmer less dense air, since cold air sinks.

Reviving this thread. Since this morning, my AC behaves pretty strange. No matter what settings I try within the idrive climate settings, nothing helps. All it does it blowing hot air through the front window air vents. Since it quite cold over here, I would have appreciated some heat coming out of the footwell air vents :)
Car is going in on monday to check ....