cold winter air blowing to back seat vents

[gymkata]

I normally don't have too many people in the car, but this cold weekend in the midwest, I had people in the back seat. I tried to blow hot air to the back seat by opening the back vents. Freezing cold air came out.
I tried playing around with the settings but to no success.

Is this common? What should be done to correct this?
Thanks.

[repenttokyo]

in the manual, it says that those vents are only to blow "cool air" on rear passengers - they are not for heat.

[BMWCCA1]

Heat comes out of floor vents under the front seats, if you have the lower slide control open. You can warm up the vent air a bit by using the temp control in the middle of the center dash vent, but it won't get hot.

[VentoGT]

Rtfm

[Qsilver7]

ditto to all the posts above...:D the vent at the rear of the center console...allows rear passengers to control their environment with fresh air or cooled air (when the AC is on). This way, they don't have to disturb the driver...for instance, in the spring if they are on the sunny side of the car...they can open the vent to get a nice flow of fresh air...or in the summer, with the sun beating down on the rear window...they can open the vent all the way and have "conditioned" air blow directly at them without making demands on the driver to turn up the AC. ;)

But in the winter...the rear passengers can turn off the vent if its too cold...or open it if the driver is roasting them to death in the back seat. This vent actually is a benefit to the rear passengers in controlling the temperature of the rear seat environment.

Here's a visual diagram that may help, too:

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/739000-739999/739005_105_full.jpg