OnStar Telematics module fixed - yay

I’ve not followed every thread on this topic here because now there are so many to keep up with.  But in one I did read about someone whose part arrived and the repair was successful.  Thought I’d share my experience as well because knowing some were having success helped my sanity 😊 – even if not my patience. 

2023 Denali.  Got my Telematics module replaced last week.  The old one died December 19, 2024 after the software upgrade.  It’s not my daily driver so I didn’t notice for a month.  Two months later part arrived.  Unlike many here, my mileage is very low so warranty covered my repair.  On the warranty ticket the repair came to $600.  $312 was 1.6 hours of labor.  That’s $195/hr – holy cow. 

Granted the canned responses here don’t seem very helpful at first glance but I took their suggestion and established contact with the team here.  They responded often with updates but since they don’t have the power to control inventory, they can’t really expedite anything – at least I assume they can’t.  In my case though – once the part was delivered to the dealer – I heard from the OnStar team here first.  Went to the dealer and said there’s a rumor that my part has arrived.  They hunted around on their terminal for a few minutes and then agreed it was present.  Stating that no one told them.  Probably the OnStar team was communicating with the parts dept and not the service advisors.

In my case I happened to come across solid evidence that the software update killed the unit.  Unlike some here, I didn't notice on the ride home after the upgrade that anything was broken.  I was looking at the GMC app later because I realized I’d not gotten a monthly email status report on the truck.  When I checked the map page, it showed the last time my truck was “seen” was “2 months ago”, AT the dealer.  The date I noticed that was mid-February – 2 months after the “update”.

Mid-morning on "repair day" I thought about the app again and fired it up.  Showed the truck at the dealer and was “seen” 44 minutes ago.  That told me the repair was successful 😊. 

I’ve got a 2023 so that means I paid up front for 3 years.  When I called OnStar from the truck to confirm everything looked good on their end I ended up talking to tech support for something unrelated to the repair.  It was then I asked if I could get my subscription extended for 3 months since it stopped working mid-December after the update.  They had to converse with a supervisor for a few minutes but no other questions were asked - they agreed to the extension.  Maybe they already had the evidence I'd share with the team here in February. 

Such as life with so much tech in vehicles these days.  I had assumed my 2023 had a version of the hardware that the new software was not compatible with.  I've seen scenarios like that before.  But when people here with 2024's started reporting the same, that kind of kills that theory.  Sounds kind-of like a BIOS update for a PC where it fails for some reason, rendering the PC useless.  Then, unlike modern PC's the OnStar unit can't just be reprogrammed with a new "BIOS".  It's just dead - because it's a 3rd party piece of hardware and they never expected this kind of failure. 

Thanks again to the team here for giving us a place to share our stories and know that we're not alone.  Thanks also for keeping me updated along the way.  Now I've got to come up with a pre-flight checklist to keep in the truck that I can go over after every "oil change" !