[Savageenterprise]

Has anyone experienced this before?

When running my A/C for multiple hours without interruption, the air will almost stop blowing out of the vents. It's not that the fan/blower motor isnt working or that the blend door is stuck or something.

I know this because I'm not changing the position of the air direction, it is remaining the same and I can hear the motor operating and changing speeds when I press the fan control.

I try changing positions of the air flow after this happens and I still get hardly any air blowing out of any orifice anywhere.

Now if I shut the vehicle off for about 10-15 minutes, the A/C will work fine for a period of time until it happens again. It only seems to happen when I'm using the car and it remains on for extended periods of time and before it happens the first time its usually about an hour and a half or so of stop and go driving.

It's really upsetting that I spent all this money on this nice car and this issue keeps arising without resolve despite at least 5 dealership trips for the same issue with multiple days in service each visit. I didn't notice the issue until last summer, about 8 months after my purchase because I picked up the car at the end of September and it wasn't very hot out so I didn't use the A/C much.

Can I lemon law this? I'm just so frustrated that every time I have errands to run and work to do I cant even be comfortable in my car. Any thoughts would be appreciated

[eddymerckx3]

Use search function above for “ SIB 64- 06-13” .... this is a known issue and there are lots of threads specific to this already herein

[Bavarian Tech]

64 06 13

Just a simple programming to raise the evaporator temp to prevent it from freezing.

[Savageenterprise]

Originally Posted by Bavarian Tech

64 06 13

Just a simple programming to raise the evaporator temp to prevent it from freezing.

They said they did this already in a previous visit

[Whatsupguy]

Had the same issue in early June (just bought the car in May) although mine stopped blowing air and never came back on at all. Took it to the dealer and they did a diagnostic and some sort of fix. Took the advice of another poster here in a previous thread: set climate control to auto, set the hot/cold knob located between middle vents to neutral, set both sides at 21.5c, and set fan speed right in the middle. Have not touched it since and have not had one issue since. Working perfectly and it has been hot and humid up here.

[Elvisfan]

Originally Posted by Bavarian Tech

64 06 13

Just a simple programming to raise the evaporator temp to prevent it from freezing.

It’s obviously freezing up. I can’t believe they can’t fix it. There is probably a loose fitting and losing the refrigerant.

[Savageenterprise]

Originally Posted by Elvisfan

It’s obviously freezing up. I can’t believe they can’t fix it. There is probably a loose fitting and losing the refrigerant.

It’s not losing refrigerant because the air wouldn’t blow cold. The air is definitely cold whether it’s blowing out at full force or minimally

[Savageenterprise]

Originally Posted by Whatsupguy

Had the same issue in early June (just bought the car in May) although mine stopped blowing air and never came back on at all. Took it to the dealer and they did a diagnostic and some sort of fix. Took the advice of another poster here in a previous thread: set climate control to auto, set the hot/cold knob located between middle vents to neutral, set both sides at 21.5c, and set fan speed right in the middle. Have not touched it since and have not had one issue since. Working perfectly and it has been hot and humid up here.

It sounds like you may have had a slightly different issue. That being said, the AC should work on any setting, however cold or hot I want the car. This has to be a design flaw or something

[Desertnate]

Originally Posted by Bavarian Tech

64 06 13

Just a simple programming to raise the evaporator temp to prevent it from freezing.

This SIB also includes a part installed in the interior of the car that re-positions a sensor. https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...47832-9999.pdf

OP: I had the same problem and they ran SIB mentioned here. Unfortunately, I haven't road tripped since to test out whether it worked. I am hopeful because after the update I noticed my AC cools the cabin much better in even normal daily circumstances. The air coming out of the vents is colder and the climate control seems to be more steady rather than constantly changing the fan speed.

[Minez]

This same thing happened to me headed to Jacksonville from Miami last summer. After 1 hr everything was blowing on auto/max at 67 and it was like I had the heat on. I drove straight to the dealer sweating my balls off. They did the 64 06 13 as everyone indicated above and that seemed to fix if for about 3 months. Started doing it again. I went in and told my rep I want the system discharged/recharged. Just over a year later, still going strong. I don't know why it would have made a difference in a closed loop system, it just did. Sometimes, you just go with it.

[Savageenterprise]

Originally Posted by Desertnate

This SIB also includes a part installed in the interior of the car that re-positions a sensor. https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...47832-9999.pdf

OP: I had the same problem and they ran SIB mentioned here. Unfortunately, I haven't road tripped since to test out whether it worked. I am hopeful because after the update I noticed my AC cools the cabin much better in even normal daily circumstances. The air coming out of the vents is colder and the climate control seems to be more steady rather than constantly changing the fan speed.

Originally Posted by Minez

This same thing happened to me headed to Jacksonville from Miami last summer. After 1 hr everything was blowing on auto/max at 67 and it was like I had the heat on. I drove straight to the dealer sweating my balls off. They did the 64 06 13 as everyone indicated above and that seemed to fix if for about 3 months. Started doing it again. I went in and told my rep I want the system discharged/recharged. Just over a year later, still going strong. I don't know why it would have made a difference in a closed loop system, it just did. Sometimes, you just go with it.

Thank you both for your inputs. They performed both of these things as well at separate visits. I believe the first time i took it there they did the empty and recharge of the system and the 2nd time they replaced the sensor. That being said I don't know if they "re-positioned" the sensor or not...Both of these things were done last year so I don't remember 100%

When I go on Friday I'm going to mention the 64 06 13 service bulletin and see if they did that specifically or not yet.

[Livetodrive]

My vehicle was reprogrammed after it froze up once, and it hasn’t happened again

[Desertnate]

The SIB shows a physical part being installed and no mention of a software update, but when I went in the SA consistently said there was a software update performed to resolve a "compatibility" issue and no mention of a part. The truth may me both actions are needed. The dealership invoice was really vague, so I'm not sure what they did. A

ll I know is it seems to be working better now.

[clemsonf31]

Originally Posted by Desertnate

The SIB shows a physical part being installed and no mention of a software update, but when I went in the SA consistently said there was a software update performed to resolve a "compatibility" issue and no mention of a part. The truth may me both actions are needed. The dealership invoice was really vague, so I'm not sure what they did. A

ll I know is it seems to be working better now.

If I remember correctly, it's a spacer to pull a sensor out of the direct airflow. Had this issue in my F31 and after reprogramming and this spacer component, has been functioning well.

[Savageenterprise]

Originally Posted by Desertnate

The SIB shows a physical part being installed and no mention of a software update, but when I went in the SA consistently said there was a software update performed to resolve a "compatibility" issue and no mention of a part. The truth may me both actions are needed. The dealership invoice was really vague, so I'm not sure what they did. A

ll I know is it seems to be working better now.

Originally Posted by clemsonf31

If I remember correctly, it's a spacer to pull a sensor out of the direct airflow. Had this issue in my F31 and after reprogramming and this spacer component, has been functioning well.

Appreciate the input. I'm taking a copy of the SIB with me to the dealership just to see if they did that specifically already or not. Thanks for the help, this has been driving me bananas

[Wires]

What are you setting your fan setting to? If it's too low, it will freeze up until you turn off the car or suffer for an hour in the car. It needs a certain blower level to ensure enough cold is pulled off the evaporator to prevent freezing.

I had that issue when I first bought my car. I set the blower low, and it did in on a pretty cool day (70F). Now I leave it at 50% all the time with no issues, and higher when it's hot outside.

It is a bit silly that they allow a blower level lower than the system can handle IMO.

[Desertnate]

Originally Posted by Wires

What are you setting your fan setting to? If it's too low, it will freeze up until you turn off the car or suffer for an hour in the car. It needs a certain blower level to ensure enough cold is pulled off the evaporator to prevent freezing.

When it happened to me, I had the blower set as high as it would go and the cabin set to 70F. The problem seemed to be once the car cooled off the climate control ran the fan too slow, even though it kept the cabin comfortable, and things froze up.

It doesn't take very long to thaw things out. In my case temps were over 90F and if you include the heat coming off the road temps were probably well over 100F. It only took about 5~10 minutes of driving with the AC totally off and the fan running high to thaw things out again.

[chiefneil]

Originally Posted by Wires

What are you setting your fan setting to? If it's too low, it will freeze up until you turn off the car or suffer for an hour in the car. It needs a certain blower level to ensure enough cold is pulled off the evaporator to prevent freezing.

I had that issue when I first bought my car. I set the blower low, and it did in on a pretty cool day (70F). Now I leave it at 50% all the time with no issues, and higher when it's hot outside.

It is a bit silly that they allow a blower level lower than the system can handle IMO.

The fan speed shouldn’t matter. I’ve gone on long road trips with the fan speed on the lowest setting for hours with no issues. The problem is either a sensor or software as others have mentioned - you’ve found a workaround, but I suspect you haven’t fixed the underlying issue.

As a side note, for me this is just the latest example of problematic a/c in the 3-series. My E36 a/c was flat out horrible. The E46 was better but just barely tolerable. The F30 is not especially cold but it’s decent so long as you don’t have the issue described on this thread (I did have an issue where the fan would periodically drop to minimum on its own, but that was fixed).

Our 2002 X5 had an a/c that blew ridiculously cold but had constant issues. Our 2012 X5 was less cold and also had constant issues.

What’s with BMW and the a/c issues? It’s like they need to hire a whole new hvac team or something.

[Wires]

Originally Posted by chiefneil

The fan speed shouldn’t matter. I’ve gone on long road trips with the fan speed on the lowest setting for hours with no issues. The problem is either a sensor or software as others have mentioned - you’ve found a workaround, but I suspect you haven’t fixed the underlying issue.

As a side note, for me this is just the latest example of problematic a/c in the 3-series. My E36 a/c was flat out horrible. The E46 was better but just barely tolerable. The F30 is not especially cold but it’s decent so long as you don’t have the issue described on this thread (I did have an issue where the fan would periodically drop to minimum on its own, but that was fixed).

Our 2002 X5 had an a/c that blew ridiculously cold but had constant issues. Our 2012 X5 was less cold and also had constant issues.

What’s with BMW and the a/c issues? It’s like they need to hire a whole new hvac team or something.

Isn't a sensor issue, but software would be my guess. That was my experience from 4 years ago when I bought the car, and now I just keep in in the middle since I find that most comfortable, so I may have masked it if the last updates at the dealer didn't address it.

I will 100% agree with you that BMW HVAC design is BRUTAL. I'm guessing they just drive at the track all day with the windows down. My E90 had the worst HVAC of any vehicle I owned. I had to set it to 18C (which should be freezing) to make the cabin "normal". On really hot days, the vents got cold and it would turn turn down the AC while the cabin was still melting. At least the F30 addressed that with the cabin facing temp sensor, but it's still not perfect.

[Desertnate]

Originally Posted by chiefneil

What’s with BMW and the a/c issues? It’s like they need to hire a whole new hvac team or something.

It could be worse. The A/C in my F32 is far better than my MK6 GTI. I felt my F32 was a huge upgrade in both the volume of air being moved and the overall temperature of the air.

I would love to see all the places BMW does vehicle testing. I know they do hot weather testing in Death Valley, but extreme heat in low humidity will have a very different effect on some vehicle systems than hot and humid conditions. In the case of the A/C, it seems most of the issues seem to be from very humid areas where condensation on components will be much higher. They should also hot weather test in places like Florida, Louisiana, or even more tropical locations like Malaysia.

[Savageenterprise]

Update:I dropped the car off at the dealer this morning and the SA informed me that they performed this exact SIB last visit that a few of you had mentioned. Despite this being almost verbatim what I'm experiencing still, maybe the tech didn't re-position the sensor correctly? Let's see what happens this time.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...47832-9999.pdf

[eddymerckx3]

Originally Posted by Savageenterprise

Update:I dropped the car off at the dealer this morning and the SA informed me that they performed this exact SIB last visit that a few of you had mentioned. Despite this being almost verbatim what I'm experiencing still, maybe the tech didn't re-position the sensor correctly? Let's see what happens this time.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...47832-9999.pdf

Keep us posted. Also, what is model and build date of ur F30? Per the SIB newer models get the software update only (6/2014 and newer) while older build dates get the spacer on sensor. Wondering if both is needed for all. Will b curious what part of the SIB remedy they actually performed on your car?