I get in the car, dash says it's 44F (outside)... pretty cold inside too... I raise it all the way to 84F... hit AUTO to "soft" and it's only 2 bars and fanning very slowly... I hit medium and same thing... I hit auto again for "intensive" and same thing... still only 2 fan bars and very quiet... quite a few minutes later it starts trying harder.

I assume that it does not blow harder until there is some heat in the coolant. You probably don't want cold air blowing strongly on you when it is already cold.

Agreed, by design it won't blow much air until there is heat to deliver.

That is why they have heated seats and steering wheels, which are practically instant.

Also setting it 'all the way to 84F' isn't the right thing to do.

Set it to the temp you want and let the system decide the best way to bring it up. Setting 84F and then turning it down will just create a see-saw effect. (Unless of course you want to sit in a car at nearly 29 C)

It really is easy guys, set the temp at what you want and press auto.

Had Auto with "frost" button on ever since I posted this thread. And I finally got around setting the "temperature" to neutral via iDrive today (passender side had it on red). As I set that to white (neutral), I noticed that center fan speed was reduced, meaning fans were running harder than they had to before I set them to neutral. Which also means that, during summer, I should set them to "blue" and set it to "red" for winter. Let's not forget cold summer nights to "red".

Some insist on this being full Auto, and we are all aware of that. I could leave them to neutral but fans could be working harder than they have to without changing the "temperature" knob through iDrive on different occaions. It is full Auto, I agree, at the expense of running the fans harder than they have to at times. It is hardly as simple or user friendly as some other manufactures in my opinion.

?????????

I like the way it works. I set the temps to 20.5 C and engage the A/C when "I" want it on.

With the Blue and Red indicators in i-Drive, I am still a bit unsure as to what they do. I keep them set near the middle - the white mark.

Why is it that when I hit Auto, the A/C light with the snow flake turns on. So when I turn the A/C off, the Auto turns off along with it. So I have to have the compressor on when I just want the heater in winter. That seems very wateful.

The compressor is not necessarily "ON" when the green light on the snowflake button is lit -- the green light only means that the compressor is available, if the climate control deems it necessary.

And I'll have to check, but I don't recall the AUTO light going out on my X5 when I turn the A/C button "off."

The manual says "The cooling function cools and dehumidifies the incoming air before also reheating it as required, according to the temperature setting."

So I took it that it's always on along with Auto function, even in winter when cooling function seems like a waste of energy.

I'll have to check again whether turning the cooling function off also turns the Auto off. It's been a while since I used the Auto, but that's the I remember it.