Climate will only blow onto windscreen

[Chrispy]

Noticed today in the warm weather that the car refused to blow air out of the passenger or footwell vents no matter what I did - will only blow it at the windscreen.  Temp and blower power respond ok, just no control over direction.  Comes out of the rear vents ok.

Any ideas?  Can't be normal behaviour surely.

[Pat Mustard]

Definitely normal on an E70. The blower has no less than 13 electronic actuators attached to it which control all the vents. These are cheap pieces of crap normally made in Mexico and are prone to condensation which corrodes the electronics within. Only 1 can be got at from the footwell and the dash needs to come out to get at the rest.

[Pat Mustard]

This explains it better

[Chrispy]

Hmm - but for all actuators to fail at once?  And for it to also refuse to do anything on the recirculation front either - that's stuck in position (sorry only just realised that)......

Googling this, it seems others have the same issue and it's battery related?  Like if the battery is ageing/ weak then the climate refuses to let you use anything other than defrost.

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/x5- ... twell.html

http://www.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=490819

Will get the multi-meter across the terminals this weekend I think and have a look.  Not sure if the battery replacement on these things is straightforward if this is the issue? Coding etc.....

It has also been doing other strange things a lot more recently too, like the electric steering wheel adjustment forgetting to come back out when I get in, the split screen sat nav going back to "location" and not "map north facing" (which I keep choosing) much much more regularly.  My journeys to work have been much shorter recently since we moved house so it's not getting quite the usage it once did, but it does get long runs at weekends......

[Chrispy]

Realised I created this thread too re this.

This issue, and the 3rd row blowers not working is as a result of a failed IHKA high unit - aka the main thing in the dash with the knobs on and little display with the climate temp etc. 

Turns out the unit I had is superseded by a new one, possibly due to issues with the old one.

Part codes are (for anyone interested or who sees similar issues):

Old one: 9262781
New one: 9310449

The new ones are £850 plus VAT from BMW (vs circa £500 for the old one) but I got one off eBay for £110 including shipping.  Plugged it in and it worked straight away with no coding - I just need the coding now to get my 3rd row up and running as the replacement unit was from a car without the 3rd row seating option fitted.