This Is the Most Annoying Button in the History of Time

I recently discovered the single most annoying switch in the entire history of the automotive industry. It’s located on my center control stack, and its mere presence infuriates me to the point where I want to murder everyone associated with my vehicle’s creation, ground up their bodies, and turn their bones into indecipherable automotive buttons.

But before I fly to Germany for my killing spree, please allow me to explain the switch in question – and my problems with it. Once I’ve done so, I believe you all will agree that my murderous rampage will legally qualify as justifiable homicide.

To begin, I should note that the switch that makes me furious is primarily limited to BMW products. In fact, I can’t recall ever seeing it in a non-BMW product, presumably because other automakers have at least some modicum of intelligence. “We may make transmissions that last as long as butterfly metamorphosis,” say Chrysler engineers. “But at least we don’t have that stupid switch.”

OK, you’re probably wondering. So what the hell is this switch?

Well, here’s the deal: in my automobile, I have dual-zone automatic climate control. This is a hallmark feature of many upscale and wanna-be upscale vehicles. You set one side to 74. You set the other side side to 69. You press “AUTO.” And then the air blows out at the perfect temperature to create a 74-degree experience on one side, and a 69-degree experience on the other side, and everyone is happy, and you can go back to fighting about normal rich people things, like what to do if you see a member of a minority group walking through your neighborhood.

But that’s not what happens when you have The Switch.

When you have the switch, what happens is, you set one side to whatever temperature you want, and the other side to the other temperature you want, and all seems to be well. But it turns out that this has no effect on the actual air temperature. In order to affect the actual air temperature, you have to change the switch to BLUE or RED, depending on what type of air you want to be released from the vents, even after you’ve already set the temperature.

Now, here’s why this pisses me off: because this DEFEATS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF AUTOMATIC CLIMATE CONTROL. When I set my climate control in the first place, I’m telling the system exactly what temperature I want. So why is the entire climate control system at the mercy of some all-knowing switch that decides whether to blow hot air or cold air? Newsflash, climate control system: if I choose “84” for the climate control temperature, and it’s 2 degrees outside, I’m going to want HOT AIR, regardless of whether the freaking switch is on blue or red.

To further explain why it pisses me off, allow me to provide you with a real-world example to illustrate my frustration. Say it’s the middle of winter and somehow the switch accidentally gets turned to “BLUE,” which means cold. Here’s what happens: even though I have the temperature set at 75 degrees and automatic, the air that blows out isn’t warm. The air that comes out is cold, because that’s the random orientation of some STUPID SWITCH that completely overrides every single setting in my climate control system.

I should also take this opportunity to mention that the switch is unlit, which means I have no idea what air temperature is going to come out at night.

Now, if this doesn’t sound so bad, allow me to provide you with a different example that I think will drive home the point even further.

Let’s say you lived in some really nice mansion with this really nice bathroom with these really nice towels and you had a really nice tub where you could set the exact temperature of the water. You want 84? Push 84. You want 83? Push 83, and the water comes out just a hair cooler to cater to your delicate sensibilities. Well, guess what? If this tub was built by BMW, and you set it to 83, the damn water would come out ICE FREAKIN COLD unless you also moved some random dial located elsewhere on your tub control pad.

The reason this pisses me off so much is that the climate control system in this vehicle was apparently designed with complex, delicate rich people in mind, except for this switch. You can change it from 69 to 70 if you feel it’s getting too chilly. You can turn on the air, send it to your feet, turn it up, send it to the windshield, turn it down, blast it, lower it, WHATEVER. There are 10 different climate control buttons and four vents. And yet the ENTIRE COMPLEX SYSTEM is at the mercy of this random, 1970s-era temperature changing switch.

Interestingly, the point of this column is not to complain about my climate control switch. This may surprise you, considering I’ve spent the last 850 words doing exactly that, but I actually have a different purpose: my point today is to find out if anyone out there on TTAC has any freaking idea why the hell they would include this switch in the vehicle, considering they already have other buttons that control the temperature. I’ve never been able to figure it out, and I’d love an explanation, and by God I think you people might have it.

But while I’d love to hear an explanation of the switch, don’t even try to justify it. Because then you’ll end up a target for my murderous rampage.