Help car at dealer (Phone Hotspot issue)

HumanTT · February 21, 2020

Guys I'm needing help, since I got my 2018 Silverado, I have been able to turn on the hotspot on my phone, and have my truck join, and use it as if I am paying for a OnStar/chevy internet plan. About a month ago it would only stay connected for about 2-4 minutes and then it would disconnect me. I'm still under my 3year warranty so I took it to my dealer who just called and told me, its not working because I don't have an internet plan with OnStar. So told them thats not what I'm talking about, and told them again what was going on. About 15mins later I get a call back from the tech working on my truck and he says "You can't do that and you have never been able to do that, because you could put a virus on your radio software) and if I wanted to I could call 1-800-222-1020 (Chevrolet Owner Center )and they could talk to me. Well I did and all they do is send me to connected services which is OnStar and I don't have an active plan with them so its a loop back and forth.

Am I losing my mind? are you able to use your phone hotspot and connect it to your truck, so you can use your apps on your truck IE play music with the Mylink app of Pandora?

Edited February 21, 2020 by HumanTT

Flameout · February 21, 2020

I do it all the time! Just today I had my phone hotspot on and connected my truck to the wifi hotspot to use Pandora. Either the dealer is confused or the techs are idiots

HumanTT · February 21, 2020

1 hour ago, Flameout said:

I do it all the time! Just today I had my phone hotspot on and connected my truck to the wifi hotspot to use Pandora. Either the dealer is confused or the techs are idiots

Well I just got a call saying I can't keep the loaner and I needed to pick up my truck because I rejected the fix of adding a data plan to my truck

Edited February 21, 2020 by HumanTT

JimCost2014 · February 21, 2020

On 2/21/2020 at 12:46 PM, HumanTT said:

Well I just got a call saying I can't keep the loaner and I needed to pick up my truck because I rejected the fix of adding a data plan to my truck

Check with another dealer, you can take your truck anywhere you want (GM lot) for warranty work.

Question, can't you use Pandora either through CarPlay, or just plugged in with the USB or Bluetooth (I know phone has to be plugged in for CarPlay)?

Edited February 25, 2020 by JimCost2014

Bob2C · February 21, 2020

Guys I'm needing help, since I got my 2018 Silverado, I have been able to turn on the hotspot on my phone, and have my truck join, and use it as if I am paying for a OnStar/chevy internet plan. About a month ago it would only stay connected for about 2-4 minutes and then it would disconnect me. I'm still under my 3year warranty so I took it to my dealer who just called and told me, its not working because I don't have an internet plan with OnStar. So told them thats not what I'm talking about, and told them again what was going on. About 15mins later I get a call back from the tech working on my truck and he says "You can't do that and you have never been able to do that, because you could put a virus on your radio software) and if I wanted to I could call 1-800-222-1020 (Chevrolet Owner Center )and they could talk to me. Well I did and all they do is send me to connected services which is OnStar and I don't have an active plan with them so its a loop back and forth.

Am I losing my mind? are you able to use your phone hotspot and connect it to your truck, so you can use your apps on your truck IE play music with the Mylink app of Pandora?

I have a 2018 Tahoe and when I connect my IPhone hotspot to the truck it stays connected if I am actively using the hotspot(iHeartRadio radio, etc). If I stop that it will disconnect in a few min.

Are you using and IPhone or Android?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

dieselfan1 · February 21, 2020

HumanTT · February 22, 2020

3 hours ago, JimCost2014 said:

Check with another dealer, you can take your truck anywhere you want (GM lot) for warranty work.

Question, can't you use Pandora either through CarPlay, or just plugged in with the USB or Bluetooth(I know phone has to be plugged in for CarPlay)?

I'm not sure, I have always done it with my hotspot.

2 hours ago, Bob2C said:

I have a 2018 Tahoe and when I connect my IPhone hotspot to the truck it stays connected if I am actively using the hotspot(iHeartRadio radio, etc). If I stop that it will disconnect in a few min.

Are you using and IPhone or Android?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

iPhone 11 pro max on T-Mobile, I did try both of my kids phones both are iPhones 11, but same issue.

Edited February 22, 2020 by HumanTT

Bob2C · February 22, 2020

iPhone 11 pro max on T-Mobile, I did try both of my kids phones both are iPhones 11, but same issue.

Tried an old android phone and it did not disconnect. It’s the iPhone that is causing the problem when it’s idle.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

HumanTT · February 22, 2020

26 minutes ago, Bob2C said:

Tried an old android phone and it did not disconnect. It’s the iPhone that is causing the problem when it’s idle.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mine is disconnecting in the middle of a song on Pandora, I can't even get it to play a full song.

Edited February 22, 2020 by HumanTT

HumanTT · February 22, 2020

UPDATE---

Picked up my truck from the dealer with no work done. I talked to the tech and he was not any help just kept on saying GM says you can't do that and I could call them and give them my case number and keep on bugging them to get them to tell him what to do to fix it. I guess it's my job to tell the dealer what part to fix and my job to keep on them for a fix. My service adviser said GM is having a lot of radio trouble right now, and its just a game of waiting it out. (I don't really under stand that on a 60k truck but what do I know, I guess its my fault for buying a chevy")

On my repair ticket it says

"Customer states while listening to radio it will drop hotspot"

"TAC said truck is out of data on their plan and needs to be renewed"

"Talked to customer on the phone no work done at this time"

I would love if you guys can/will post up and tell me if this works on your truck so I can show them that i'm not crazy.

Bob2C · February 22, 2020

Mine is disconnecting in the middle of a song on Pandora, I can't even get it to play a full song.

Hmmm interesting

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slide187 · February 22, 2020

Mine DEFINITELY works. Whenever I want I just turn it on and my truck automatically joins it and then I can get my weather app to tell me stuff. (I wouldn’t even bother if Apple would get their butt in gear and give us weather apps on CarPlay like they’ve been saying for years now). I don’t use it to stream or anything but it’s never just disconnected on me.

In fact, my truck primarily joins my house WiFi when I start up and disconnects when I get out of range. But when I come home it signs back on in my street. And I’ve had it on. House WiFi for things like updates and whatnot without issue. And it’s the same thing: a non-onstar source of internet.

And that part about the virus is something young people say to old people when they don’t want to help them with their tech. It’s preposterous. And that’s not meant to be an age joke, I’m not a young guy hahaha. It’s just str8 lazy and made up. If that were the case you could get just as nice a virus from the onstar internet access. Unless they’re gonna change their logo to a phone with a condom over it. [emoji849][emoji849]

The only thing I can think is maybe it’s a hotspot setting? But I also have T-Mobz and I don’t see a setting for timeout. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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HumanTT · February 25, 2020

On Saturday I did keep on calling the Chevrolet Owner Center, and on my 3rd transfer, I told the person whatever they do, please don't transfer me back to OnStar because they can't help, so she opened a ticket for me, and said I would get a call back within 48hrs. (Monday) I did get a call from Chevy with a person saying he is going to be my point person, and will get all of this figured out, so I guess I just need to give it time now.

Wish me luck...

42Grand · March 2, 2020

Hey man, have you checked to make sure the hotspot isn’t turning off on your iPhone or that the connections are being terminated by it? I’ve been using the hotspot from my iPhone for a while and I’ve noticed that occasionally if I’m not doing much on my MacBook, my phone will shut off the connection. Maybe this is happening in your situation. I’ll try this out on my 2018 tomorrow to see if I can duplicate the issue you’re having.