First question -
When you roll the TEMP all the way up to MAX HEAT, should not the air flow show on the control screen as coming out the foot wells?
Yesterday evening here in Dallas - it was around 70 degrees - and I was testing the A/C Heater in 'AUTO' mode. A/C is freezing cold, and the heater warms up quite well BUT on MAX HEAT, the air flow indicator stayed in 'bi-level' and never went to the foot wells only. Now, if I manually selected the air flow and chose 'foot wells'. it switched out of 'AUTO' mode as it should and all air flow came out of the foot wells. Then after a few minutes, I pressed 'AUTO' and the air flow switched back to bi-level - and, yes, the blower was on High.
Is it just not cold enough outside for the climate control system to think it needed to move the full airflow to the foot wells?
Thoughts?

 

70 degrees is not cold....

 

I think the AUTO button is a little deceptive. Personally, I would LIKE to always have the climate control showing AUTO, but it's just not possible as you've documented.

AUTO works perfectly in regards to automatically regulating the temperature and automatically regulating the fan speed, but not the output locations as you've described. If it were REALLY AUTO mode, I think it would be able to sense when the interior winshield is fogged up, then switch to front defrost, but it doesn't.

I do believe at certain cooler selected temperature (like when driver wants AC) and the setting is AUTO, it will output the airflow out of the face blasting vents as traditional AC would output, but as you said, with a warmer temperature setting and AUTO it doesn't switch 100% to the footwell.

Get this. I agree with you because I personally prefer 100% footwell heat in the winter time! However-----I know many people that actually do choose the BI-LEVEL setting during the dead of winter! (When I'm the passenger, I change it to 100% footwell, and sometimes that starts a 'conversation', lol.)

So---perhaps the system was designed knowing that SOME people prefer bi-level during the winter time, and some people prefer footwell during wintertime, and they simply split the difference to try and satisfy both preferences? After all, we footwell guys are receiving heat down there, just not 100%

Who knows, but those are my thoughts.

 

For me, the A/C controls are perfect. I just set it on Auto and adjust the preferred temperature as desired. I never turn the compressor and just let it run as required by the Auto function year around.