Well, after all this time, AVC's post came in closest to what answer the dealer finally provided. With the covid problem along with our being 85 miles or so from dealer, it was a month ago I got to the dealer and questioned them more. One of their fellows came out to our CX-5, said he had exactly the same car, and demonstrated that when he turned temp control all the way up, just past the 81 degree display, (I think it was 81), the next thing displayed was, "Hi." THEN, with the vent icon showing down only the system actually blew out really warm air at floor level. After that, he added to continue floor heat, leave the temp at Hi and use the fan speed to find cabin temp I liked. Well, ..... OK, I guess, but it makes no sense at all to me anything would be designed this way. Even at low fan speed, an 81 degree warm air flow from the floor will quickly provide high temp all through the cabin which we would never want. Perhaps using his advice initially we can get warm feet and then begin manipulating all the heater controls to find another balance. We've not tried this yet.
This is my only real complaint on this car so far.
This is my update.......
This is my only real complaint on this car so far.
This is my update.......