Manual Climate Control

[Seazap]

Does anyone have a good picture of the manual climate control without the dual zone? I ordered my 2011 this way and I cant find any pictures to see what Im gonna get.

[rori zahr]

here's one but not nicely centered on the dashboard so you can see it properly.
I can take another one for you this monday if no one else post it here.
why you ordered it this way? I really like the Automatic / dual zone AC, it's a must have option IMO specially in winter!

[taYab]

Hm.. I thought this is basic option for all Zedies.
Maybe only in North America

[Seazap]

I ordered mine with the M Sport/Citrus Yellow Pkg, with this package leather/Alcantara seats are included in that package price of $5750. I was able to get more options by skipping the premium pkg and getting power seats and bluetooth as seperate options. I would have been paying about $2,200 for climate control and ambiance lighting over the cost of the power seats and bluetooth.

[Seazap]

Thanks for the picture, beautiful interior.

[rori zahr]

Originally Posted by Seazap

I ordered mine with the M Sport/Citrus Yellow Pkg, with this package leather/Alcantara seats are included in that package price of $5750. I was able to get more options by skipping the premium pkg and getting power seats and bluetooth as seperate options. I would have been paying about $2,200 for climate control and ambiance lighting over the cost of the power seats and bluetooth.

2,200 is too much, can't you just tick the automatic climate control alone?
ask your dealer, the cost difference between the 2 systems is not that big.

the Z I showed you is a sapphire black 23i that is sitting right now in my dealer's showroom. combo looks really good, I wish it had sports seats, I would have taken it ;-)

[Land_Shark]

Rori: Where are you from getting your Z??

[skier219]

Here it is in my 2011 s30i:



Getting manual CC was one of the reasons I special ordered my Z4. BMW does not link the right/left temperature knobs together with the Z4's auto CC, which means if you drive the car solo (like I do 99.9% of the time), you'd need to tweak two knobs for any temperature changes. That right there vetoed the auto CC in my head. Seat heaters are all I need to maintain my marriage! The other thing I don't like about auto CC systems is that they frequently default to running the AC for humidity control, and it's not necessary much of the time in my area. It ends up being a drag on the engine, and is noticeable with manual transmission (with auto, it tends to blend in to the background more).

I have had auto CC in most of my recent sedans, wagons, and SUVs, where it makes more sense, but had manual climate control in my S2000 and *loved* it. The simplicity and direct operation/effectiveness is a refreshing change after many years of fidgeting with auto systems. So I was pleased to find I could order the Z4 with manual CC. BMW's manual system has been outstanding so far. Set it and forget it.

BTW, I also ordered manual seats on purpose, and they have been great too. Though I think the Germans went a bit overboard -- the seats have 6 (!) levers and buttons. That is almost too much variability. God help the SOB who ever messes with my optimized setup....

[Memphis1]

Originally Posted by skier219

BMW does not link the right/left temperature knobs together with the Z4's auto CC, which means if you drive the car solo (like I do 99.9% of the time), you'd need to tweak two knobs for any temperature changes. The other thing I don't like about auto CC systems is that they frequently default to running the AC for humidity control, and it's not necessary much of the time in my area. BMW's manual system has been outstanding so far. Set it and forget it. BTW, I also ordered manual seats on purpose, and they have been great too. God help the SOB who ever messes with my optimized setup....

what???? if you have the auto cc and there's no passenger, there's no need to move both knobs, the humidity control avoids foggy windows and if you're worrying about turning shit to clear the windows in your manual cc you're potential for a fender bender.... and the manual seats are just beyond me.... if you get the auto cc, you really don't have to think about it and if you get power seats, it doesn't matter who gets in your car and you don't have to kill any SOB... just press your memory button and everything returns to where you left it....


i really don't understand why you would want a manual cc or manual seats.

[rori zahr]

Originally Posted by Memphis1

what???? if you have the auto cc and there's no passenger, there's no need to move both knobs, the humidity control avoids foggy windows and if you're worrying about turning shit to clear the windows in your manual cc you're potential for a fender bender.... and the manual seats are just beyond me.... if you get the auto cc, you really don't have to think about it and if you get power seats, it doesn't matter who gets in your car and you don't have to kill any SOB... just press your memory button and everything returns to where you left it....


i really don't understand why you would want a manual cc or manual seats.

I agree with you, specially regarding the Auto AC. this thing is a must have IMO. I have it fixed on 23 degrees Celsius all year around, never touch it and in wet and rainy days is where it becomes so handy, cabin remains dry like in summer time. love what the auto ac does in cold rainy days!

[rori zahr]

Originally Posted by Land_Shark

Rori: Where are you from getting your Z??

you mean from which dealer?
B&H of course, but I'm still waiting for credit approval and on the mean time I'm eating my nails

[skier219]

Originally Posted by Memphis1

what???? if you have the auto cc and there's no passenger, there's no need to move both knobs, the humidity control avoids foggy windows and if you're worrying about turning shit to clear the windows in your manual cc you're potential for a fender bender.... and the manual seats are just beyond me.... if you get the auto cc, you really don't have to think about it and if you get power seats, it doesn't matter who gets in your car and you don't have to kill any SOB... just press your memory button and everything returns to where you left it....


i really don't understand why you would want a manual cc or manual seats.

So you're OK leaving one side at a different temp than the other? I would not be. In all my other cars with auto, there is a "dual" button that you can toggle to sync both sides. So if I get in the car alone after previously having a passenger that tweaked their side to something far from my preferences, I can quickly sync it back to my preference with one touch. Can't do that on the Z4. Plus, I routinely change temperature day to day (yes, even on cars with auto CC) and consider it to be a pain if I had to fiddle with two knobs to set one temperature. If BMW put a dual/sync button in the car, neither of these scenarios would be issues to me.

As far as AC, I'd rather use my own judgement than trade away a constant 10-20% of my horsepower and an associated amount of fuel. It kicks on when you switch to defrost mode anyhow, which is the one time it should be automatic. All the rest of the time I like to decide, especially on a car that will be driven top down quite a bit. I often use AC with the top down in summer to moderate temperature on a hot day, but it sure won't be doing much humidity control then.

Seat memory is the only part I miss about power seats. Otherwise, I vastly prefer manual seats on a sports car. Way more direct. There's usually a decent weight savings too, which is obviously not a big deal on this particular car.

So yes, I paid extra to order a car with manual climate control, manual seats, and manual transmission. Call me crazy, but I like it.

[Seazap]

Thanks for the great pictures. I think I made the right choice skipping this option, the controls still look great. Mine is also a 3.0i with a manual 6 Speed. I had an E90 330i with the same engine and trans and I remember the A/C always cycling on and off and noticing big power drops/surges. So it will be nice to have better control of that.

I cant wait to get my car!

[Seazap]

No you cant tick the Auto CC as a stand alone option. Its bundled in the premium package on the 3.0i in North America.

[Memphis1]

Originally Posted by skier219

As far as AC, I'd rather use my own judgement than trade away a constant 10-20% of my horsepower and an associated amount of fuel.
-i guess that would be a concern with only 255 h/p

Way more direct. There's usually a decent weight savings too.
-"direct"??? you do realize that a 14 way seat with hair thin adjustments is better than your 6 way manual seat were every press or pull of the lever moves the seat about a 1/8th of an inch? and "weight savings", you're kidding me right?!?

So yes, I paid extra to order a car with manual climate control, manual seats, and manual transmission.
-explain to me how NOT putting the $4k for automatic c/c and power seats and $2k for auto transmission is paying extra

...

[skier219]

Originally Posted by Memphis1

-i guess that would be a concern with only 255 h/p
...

I'll sniff the bait, but swim away on that one. I don't think we want to play HP yardstick with any of these cars unless maybe it's tea time at a croquet match (and I'd have a hard time keeping a straight face either way). In any event, I have an old farm truck in my barn that has more HP than both of our cars put together, but I still wouldn't want to piss 10-20% of it away for no reason.

Originally Posted by Memphis1

-"direct"??? you do realize that a 14 way seat with hair thin adjustments is better than your 6 way manual seat were every press or pull of the lever moves the seat about a 1/8th of an inch? and "weight savings", you're kidding me right?!?

I don't know how BMW comes up with their numbers, but the standard power seats in the premium package are "8-way" and not anything remarkable. You have to step up to the M-sport seats to get the good stuff, which I did. M-sport seats are "10-way + 2-way power bolsters" in both manual and power configurations. The only difference is whether you have levers/buttons in the manual case or all buttons and switches in the power case. Same type and number of degrees of freedom and adjustment in both.

As I noted, on these cars the weight is not an issue. It definitely counts on light sports cars though, especially when you carry that same mentality across the board. It adds up.

If you can get hair thin and quantitative adjustments out of the Z4 power seats, more "power" to you. I found them to be way too slow and there is zero indication of quantitative position and repeatability while making adjustments. In contrast, the manual seats are extremely fast and direct in adjustment, and you can iterate between notches to fine tune things with a good deal of quantitative control. BMW did a great job with the mechanical aspects of the seats, and they are easily the best seats I have owned on any sports car in recent years, manual or power.

Originally Posted by Memphis1

-explain to me how NOT putting the $4k for automatic c/c and power seats and $2k for auto transmission is paying extra

Could have gotten existing dealer stock for under invoice cost, which would have put a maxed out s30i about $2K less than the selling price of the less equipped car I ordered and waited 6 weeks for. The dealer thought I was nuts, but I wanted a simpler car. The two separate unlinked temp knobs was a definite deal breaker too.

[teagueAMX]

Originally Posted by skier219

I have an old farm truck in my barn that has more HP than both of our cars put together, but I still wouldn't want to piss 10-20% of it away for no reason.

I understand the point you're making, and not sure if that was a figure of speech, but if you're serious I'd be really curious what your old farm truck has under its hood. A 35i + 30i total almost 600 break horsepower.

Old farm trucks normally pump out a fair amount torque but not much horsepower. Most of all they do it with gearing.

[Land_Shark]

Originally Posted by rori zahr

you mean from which dealer?
B&H of course, but I'm still waiting for credit approval and on the mean time I'm eating my nails

Hahaha... I meant to say when not where... But you answered that as well...

[richard in NC]

Skier, I believe the premium package adds 4 way power lumbar to the base seats that manual seats won't have. I like being able to adjust that, especially on long trips. Of course I am spoiled by the top sport seats but like all the adjustments they have, especially the side bolsters that can be adjusted out for comfort or in for support. Lastly the memory buttons are nice, if you have someone else that may drive the car. If just you, that's not needed.

I certainly understand your points, and won't argue about you preferring manual seats and A/C. But to me, all the goodies just add to my enjoyment of a car. Yes the Z4 is a just a sporty roadster and not a Caddy but I picked the Z4 for its style, sportiness, and luxury.

Lastly, do you need to consider resale values? If you plan on trading in a few years, a lesser equiped car will suffer in resale value.

EDIT: One last point, in the 80's when cars had 60hp, the A/C would rob 10-20% of the power. Today, I doubt the A/C takes more than 10hp of the 260 (or 300) available. Even low RPM cruising won't loose enough to be a concern.

As an aside, I bet the folks that turn off A/C in the summer and lower the windows on the interstate are loosing more MPG from the increased drag than from having the A/C on. And even if they lost 1/2 MPG, that's only pennies a day difference in fuel costs. I'd gladly pay a dime a day for more comfort and not showing up a work all sweaty, and hair blown...... But then again, I pay $'s more per day for the privilege of owning a loaded Z4 and driving to work with the top down as a stress relief method. I even paid a buck for a comb to fix my hair when I arrive.....

[skier219]

richard, all good points. From what I have seen over the years, the single biggest impact on resale is transmission -- cars with manual definitely come up worse when being sold or traded later on. Most other equipment generally depreciates faster than the core value of the car. It does add value to the selling/trading price of the car at the end, but is a much smaller fraction of the overall value of the car than it was at the time of purchase. But I try not to think too hard about any of that stuff -- if I did, I'd most surely never be able to justify owning cars, much less a "discretionary" sports car like the Z4....

Manual M-sport seats do get the power side bolsters, which are nice, but no lumbar. That would have been good to have, and it's odd that it was omitted. Most cars I have owned have at least a mechanical lumbar, even when the rest of the seat is all power, so it's odd that wasn't included in the manual M-sport seats.

[skier219]

Originally Posted by teagueAMX

I understand the point you're making, and not sure if that was a figure of speech, but if you're serious I'd be really curious what your old farm truck has under its hood. A 35i + 30i total almost 600 break horsepower.

Old farm trucks normally pump out a fair amount torque but not much horsepower. Most of all they do it with gearing.

It's an old International Harvester chassis cab from the 80s with a humongous inline diesel (ancester to the Navistar engines in many big rigs today). Definitely not 600HP as I suggested above, but somewhere in the 400 HP range, and of course insane amounts of torque. But yeah, the point I was getting at, which you allude to, is that obviously HP isn't everything.

[Dr Stig 2]

Firstly - I can understand where Skier is coming from, even if I would't do the same.
After all, some people will never switch from a manual gearbox to the DCT, even if it is smoother, faster, easier to use and more fuel efficient. They just want one.

Not in agreement so much on the assumed power drain through.
20%? Ouch. Richard is right but still aiming high.

Think about your average home a/c. A 10kW unit can do a whole house.
A 1.7 kW unit can do a bedroom.
You can fit about 10 of the Z4 cabins into a small bedroom, and they both use the same compressor technology - it is just slightly heavier and more robust in a car.
They also over compensate in cars to deal with the solar heat load and engine heat transfer, but not to the point of 10 times the A/C capacity.

The power drain of a car A/C is almost negligible in cars that produce 150kW at 2000 rpm and 250kW at 6000rpm. I cant find a figure to quote exactly, but I'm sure one of you out there will do it.