I took delivery of my Fluence on Saturday so I have spent most of the weekend learning all the new settings and driving.

Today was the test of the heating and ventilation as it got quite cold. For the life of me I can get nothing coming through the main vents in the car. I have tried about every combination there is of buttons and switches to get air out of the vents, without success. There is air coming out of the windscreen vents and the demister vents and the foot well but not the vents of the main dash board. I have looked inside the vents to make sure they are open.

Has anyone else experienced this and have I just forgotten to maybe press a button

Here's hoping.

Possibly the latter? There's a button on the top row RH side, that toggles the vents, cycling through top, middle and footwell, and this is shown on the display with a graphic of which direction the air should be blowing.

I did try that button Buzby and it did the job on all the vents apart from the main dashboard vents. I watched it cycle through and kept it on the forward facing arrow for some time without sucess.

The only way I can get what you describe is to rotate the bottom wheel to shut the vent on the dash - so to get the airflow back, I reverse the wheel and out it comes.

Are you getting blown air in the rear (from the back of the central console?) when there's nothing coming from the front?

I checked the rear of the car on the back central console and nothing coming through this either. I rotated the bottom wheel on all vents both ways and looked inside to check the paddle positions open and closed.

I had a look at some other Renault forums (Megane 3) there was mention of a blocked pollen filter as the problem and solution on this model. I don't how close the Fluence is to the Megane 3 to qualify this as a problem.

The Fluence is Renaultspeak for a Megane III saloon.

I have just sat out in the car again trying a few things. What I have noticed is that that even with the temperature settings set HI there is absolutely no heat being injected into the car. I would have thought that within a few minutes I would have felt a temperature rise, but it feels just like outside air being pumped in and it is cold Brrrr.

Still no air through the main dash vents, looks like a cold trip into work tomorrow.

Hmm. There is something wrong then... If there's nothing coming out the rear either then it's nothing to do with the vent bring closed. As for getting heat, this would be a different issue, but it certainly takes a good few minutes before you get anything noticeable that I would call 'heat' - being ex-Twizy, that's something alien to me and I very rarely use it on my journey in my goal of reaching a triple-digit range, but I'll try it today and see how long it takes.

OK, so:
1) sit in your car and power it up ready to GO.
2) turn the fan speed to zero. Don't press it until it says 'OFF', just until there are no 'fanblades' illuminated. Your car should be silent.
3) Now press the vent select button to the next setting and wait. You should hear buzzing noises as the HVAC doors open and close.
4) go around each of the settings, each time waiting and counting how long each setting takes to adjust itself.
5) what I want you to go and tell me is when you have the top vents selected and you press the flow position once more to get face vents, how long does the buzzing last?

Go do that test, and let me know how long the buzzing lasts, then I might have something more to say.

For the heater:
1) Select footwell direction (just because we have some ?? over the operation of the face vents)
2) select no fanblades (as (2) above)
3) select 'HI' on the temp (just to make sure it should come in)
4) select the 'kW' power meter on the dash
5) Now, the kW shoud be reading '0'. Press the fan speed up button just once to get a half a fan blade and you should now hear the fan. Wait a few seconds. You should see the kW meter creeping up now, and after 5 seconds or so it should reach 6 or 7 kW.

Let me know what actually happens, and maybe there is something more to say.

Thanks for all the input.

Here are the results

Fan Speed Zero

top only ^ 3 secs
mid only > 11 secs
mid & bottom V> 3 secs
bottom only V 3 secs
bottom & top V^ 3 secs
top only ^ 3 secs

I set the car on pre-heat last night for the frost this morning and the heater did come on but not to great effect. Thankfully the main screen defrosted but the side windows still had some frost on. I guess the lack of mid vents does not help to effectively heat the car. This might also be born out by the following results.

For The Heater

.5 blade = 1KW
1 blade = 2KW
1.5 blade = 3KW
2 blades = 3KW
2.5 blades = 3KW
3 blades = 4KW
3.5 blades = 4KW
4 blades = 5KW