[masmole]

I don’t mean disabling climate-controlled airflow but rather disabling the knobs and buttons so that my kids don’t keep messing with it with their feet or accidentally bumping it and changing the temps.

In other luxury cars I’ve had like the Audis, when you disable window rear control for the rear, it also disables HVAC controls for the rear. I find this to be brilliant and practical as anyone with kids will know that if it can be pressed or turned, kids will do it without knowing what the results might be. There doesn’t seem to be a way to do this with the M5’s 4-zone climate control system, which if so, is quite an oversight since even non-luxury Japanese and Korean marques have this basic feature in some of their cars. Perhaps it can be done via coding? I checked the owner’s manual and nothing. Neither the physical door switch that disables the interior rear door latch handle nor the electronic toggle that disables the rear window control will also disable the rear HVAC.

Usually with brands like BMW, Audi, Mercedes, we can smile and marvel at functional and ergonomic attention-to-detail items that make you say “wow, they’ve thought of everything!” but BMW seemed to have overlooked this one little detail I guess.

A few times a week, one my kids will complain that they’re too hot and want to get out of the car. So I pull over knowing that they’ve probably either knocked the temp dial to a high setting or intentionally tampered with it by playing footsies with the HVAC knobs and unknowingly turned the heat on in the summer! (kids ore only 4 and 5yo). So my workaround is to sync the temps from the fromt dash HVAC controls and reset theirs to a normal setting then unsync it and set the fronts back to where they were before. Kinda wish I didn’t have to do this like 5 or more times a week lol.

[Jakerx]

Not sure about disabling the rear controls, but if I may offer a suggestion: it sounds like you should teach your kids how to use them. At 4 and 5 years old both my sister and myself were rather well-behaved in the car under threat from my parents (and were also old enough to understand how various controls worked).

[Aronis]

Strap them more firmly in their car seats so they cannot reach the controls. LMAO. JK, kids are good at getting at those controls either way.

I agree, a disable feature would make sense. At least you can use the sync button to equalize everything with a single push.

The controls in my Audi A8L were integrated into the rear arm rest and such were only exposed for use when the arm rest was down. Otherwise you can control the rear controls from the front in the Audi.

There must be a way to disable them. Will be watching this thread for you solution.

Mike

[masmole]

Originally Posted by JakerStyle

Not sure about disabling the rear controls, but if I may offer a suggestion: it sounds like you should teach your kids how to use them. At 4 and 5 years old both my sister and myself were rather well-behaved in the car under threat from my parents (and were also old enough to understand how various controls worked).

Well, I was actually asking about how to possibly disable HVAC controls in the rear, not advice about how to raise my kids.

But since you brought it up, yes, my kids do know how the controls work at this age, and the 5yo definitely knows that higher numbers mean hot and lower numbers mean cold. He already knows the ideal number is 68 when it's summertime. But as you probably already know as well, kids will be kids. They will accidentally knock the knobs while fumbling around playing musical chairs just to get settled into their car seats in the back, or they may mess with their sibling's temp setting intentionally just to provoke them (because that's what kids do), or they might accidentally kick the knob and change settings while already strapped into their seat. By the time we're already moving and the kids are harnessed in, they can no longer reach the knobs with their hands to correct the temp setting, and they certainly don't have the fine dexterity to make adjustments with their feet. That's when they complain they're too hot lol. Luckily, like Aronis said, I've discovered the SYNC button fixes this from the front controls. But I still wish there was a disable feature for rear HVAC controls like many other manufacturers (except BMW) already employ.

[Jakerx]

In retrospect, I believe my words came off a bit sanctimonious. Apologies, as I was neither trying to do that nor offer parenting advice. That is the unfortunate reality of the internet I guess: tone rarely translates accurately.

I do agree that a disable feature would be handy in our vehicles. My father recently purchased an A8L which has this capability.

[masmole]

No worries bro!

[A Need For Speed]

Kids go in the trunk. This is obvious.

[masmole]

Originally Posted by A Need For Speed

Kids go in the trunk. This is obvious.

that’s an awful thing to say and so wrong on many levels...


there’s no room for kids in the trunk because that’s where the dead hookers go.