dead battery after phantom radio turning on in the middle of the night

[kickass audio]

Thank god I went outside and noticed my dash cam was lit up recording which meant the radio was sending power to the USB ports because I had a totally dead battery on my truck tonight. It let me unlock the doors with the fob but the lights were strobing and it couldn't crank until it was jump started.

 

So far from what i'm seeing, it had the radio providing power to the USB ports in the truck all last night until it died at 9:30am this morning.

 

Looking through the dash cam footage, it shows almost every night at 4:54am the radio wakes up and starts my dash cam then shuts itself off a minute later.

 

I still have the lovely GM radio issue where the audio cuts out and back on again at random, i doubt GM will ever get this crap right and fix it, but has anyone else had a similar problem where the truck just won't fully go to sleep and makes the battery die?

 

The keys are not kept anywhere near the truck, nobody is going near the truck to try and wake up the radio or anything like how it primes the fuel pump, the truck is locked as shown in my dashcam footage so it was never unlocked, no tampering of any kind, not even a rodent as there was snow last night and it was totally undisturbed until I walked out and noticed the camera running.

 

This truck has been nothing but a pain in the ass with the radio and random other crap it pulls. I wish there was a company out there that could build a decent vehicle and not a electronic pile of junk on wheels.

 

edit: The only other recent problem I have had is one time I shut the truck down for 3 minutes and went to start it back up and the drivers instrument cluster screen had no backlight illumination but the truck was running fine and the radio was working as normal. I had to just shut down the truck and open my door then close the door and restart the engine and it went back to normal.

 

The ground connections at the battery and the chassis ground that goes from the head to the body and firewall are all in good shape.

Edited January 12 by kickass audio

[66ss3964spd]

I had read, here I think, that upgrading the infotainment system from Android 10 to 12 would resolve the random audio drops - which mostly occur soon after start up, but that upgrade didn't resolve that issue. A minor annoyance for me. But it did solve the issue of occasional no audio when switching between XM stations.

 

Regardless, no issue with the radio waking up that I'm aware of with my '23 HC, but I'm not using a dash cam. Not to be captain obvious but you might try unplugging the DC to see if that changes things.

 

I might regret saying this but, aside from the valve body failure a year ago right after I bought it, my '23 has been pretty solid. A couple of quirks but easily resolved.

[kickass audio]

On 1/12/2026 at 12:22 PM, 66ss3964spd said:

I had read, here I think, that upgrading the infotainment system from Android 10 to 12 would resolve the random audio drops - which mostly occur soon after start up, but that upgrade didn't resolve that issue. A minor annoyance for me. But it did solve the issue of occasional no audio when switching between XM stations.

 

Regardless, no issue with the radio waking up that I'm aware of with my '23 HC, but I'm not using a dash cam. Not to be captain obvious but you might try unplugging the DC to see if that changes things.

 

I might regret saying this but, aside from the valve body failure a year ago right after I bought it, my '23 has been pretty solid. A couple of quirks but easily resolved.

So it turned out that the tailgate switch took a crap on me. It was stuck in a partially closed position with anywhere from 1.2 to 18 killiohms of resistance and when you press the button it went to .4 ohms of resistance. The only reason I found it was the tailgate is when I left the truck charged up and unlocked and kept walking back out to the thing and the tailgate was down. I also noticed when I hooked up the battery, it would play the chimes that play when you're lowering/raising the tailgate through the door speakers.

 

I opened up the tailgate and disconnected the button and it immediately stopped keeping the BCM and radio awake and after about 10 minutes, the passenger airbag backlight went out as the modules went into a deep sleep. It also stopped the chime for the tailgate alarm when I reconnect the battery under the hood.

 

So others know, you CAN operate the tailgate without the switch plugged in at the tailgate with a few workarounds.
1.) you can raise/lower the tailgate (if yours has a full power gate like mine) with the button on the dashboard

2.) You can raise/lower the tailgate with the button on your keyfob.

3.) If you have a power gate like mine, you can still slightly raise the gate and it will kick the tilt sensor in and close the tailgate for you.

I will say this is yet another wonderful GM engineering design. I took the old sensor apart just to see if it was wet inside and only had a tiny drop of water maybe the size of a pencil tip. I tried to heat up the sensor to dry it out if something was really built up with moisture and tried to blow it out with compressed air and nothing else came out of it and the water spot was just as if you had a wet fingertip and poked the button.

 

The button is poorly made and has 2 rubber components. The first rubber piece if where your finger presses the button from the outside and the second rubber piece is inside the switch where the conductive rubber contacts the button itself. The flaw seems to be with the conductive rubber piece as it's not sealed at all to prevent water/moisture intrusion. The wire going to the switch is sealed but the button is only sealed where the wires lead into the switch and not so much where the button is recessed in the body.

 

I ordered a new switch for the tailgate and am going to take matters in my own hands and take the new button apart and see if they fixed the sealing issue with the button between the outer rubber cover and the conductive rubber piece. If they didn't, I am going to use RTV to seal up the button and hopefully prevent this nonsense from happening again.

[StingerZ16]

Thanks for the follow up. Very helpful.

 

[kickass audio]

further update since I replaced the switch on my truck.

 

The new switch was disassembled and I used RTV sealant between the rubber cover and the switch body to hopefully seal it for life.

 

I disassembled the old switch and the small PCB was removed. The switch itself is very simple, just use a rubber button to short out contacts and ground the signal wire going to the BCM. The problem seemed to be moisture got inside and ruined the PCB and there was some corrosion where the PCB is connected to the little 2 pin connector inside the switch. I tried to leave the PCB out to fully dry out and even use some heat on it but when I probe the switch at either the 2 pins that run through to the wire tail or probe on the contact pads where the button engages the switch, i still get random resistance readings.

 

The corrosion is very small but it looks to be of salt (surprise there, I live in New York and we abuse the road with salt) and likely soaked the PCB. I was able to clean the corrosion on the tiny contacts inside the button as I was also getting odd resistance values there too but the PCB seems to be a lost cause.

 

I hope the new switch will stay in good order but if it fails, I might just say screw it with the terrible design of the switch and use the connector for the failed switch with sealed off wires to make a connection that seals the plug in the tailgate to prevent corrosion on the tailgate harness and call it a day.

 

The new switch has the wires routed to the middle of the switch before they loop back out and run to the connection toward the middle of the tailgate and the rubber cap where the switch is located was changed from 4 centering pins to 2 pins to help center the button, otherwise it's the same design.

 

What surprises me is having moisture in there in the first place. I know for those with the multi-pro tailgate the grab area at the top of the gate has 2 drain holes that dump out right on the tailgate switch but my tailgate is a standard power up/down gate and has a totally solid plastic top plate. I also have a diamondback bed cover on it and it does a great job sealing water from getting in the bed, the only water that sneaks in is when I open the cover and water dribbles down to the center and in the bed.