[swozniak]

Hi

I’ve had my X5 for over a year now and last winter had an issue with windscreen blower where all the vents would work fine but when switching to windscreen max blower mode, it would try to redirect the air flow but in the end you could hear it would get stuck and no air would come out of the vents at the bottom of the windscreen.

The issue has disappeared on its own last year and I didn’t think twice about it. In fact when my car was at the garage I asked them to look at it and they didn’t find anything.

Well this year the issue has come back and has exactly same symptoms. I made sure my battery was fully charged as I thought with low usage during pandemic, low battery might contribute to the issue. But even after charging the car for two days, it is still not working.

Of course I can take the car back to the dealer as it’s still under warranty, but it is quite inconvenient currently with not curtesy cars or collections due to COVID.

Here’s a little video that shows the problem.

Is there anything I can try to diagnose the problem at home?

[Paladin1]

Software version? Any coding? Tried a reboot yet? Sounds like the vent valves are closing prematurely - which might well be a software issue since so many functions are software-controlled in this car, and the blower seemed to work initially. Particularly since the dealer - presumably - found nothing mechanically wrong.

[swozniak]

Originally Posted by Paladin1

Software version? Any coding? Tried a reboot yet? Sounds like the vent valves are closing prematurely - which might well be a software issue since so many functions are software-controlled in this car, and the blower seemed to work initially. Particularly since the dealer - presumably - found nothing mechanically wrong.

Thank you for the response. No coding, I think faulty up to date software at 07/2020.54. Regarding reboot, do you mean holding radio on/off button for 30s? If so I just tried that and made no difference. Reboot happened but the fans were still engaged which makes me think ac has not much to do with the operating system settings.

Also regarding my dealer, I don't think they looked at the issue as they blamed everything on low battery and sent me on my way.

[Tenac]

I'm not sure what BMW uses for directing its air in the ventilation system. My Ford F150 had a sticky butterfly valve due to poor install at factory was pushing on the tube just enough that when it was all warmed up and been running it would free up and send air the way I wanted. It was tricky but the tech put a scope (snake) camera down the vent I was wanting air to come out and seen it happen in real time.... Just a thought??

[swozniak]

Just an update that I sent my car to the dealers in the end. There was a bunch of things that were wrong in there including debris build up around the blower motors, electrical shorts, low battery etc. All has now been rectified and all working.

To my surprise they even swapped out the windscreen itself. Very puzzling to be honest but done under the warranty

[Pro55]

Glad its fixed. Worrying about the debris build up as potentially that could be a design problem that could affect all cars. Thanks for the update.

[c_hri_s]

I had the same problem. Turned out to be a failing stepper motor that directs the vents. They had to completely remove the dash to fix it, so I was glad it's a warranty thing.