What year is your car?

 

2005... Never upgraded the analog onstar to the digital one

 

The OnStar box is located on the RH side of the trunk under the side panel. Take the net knobs off and there it is.

 

Cool I'll check it out, thanks! It doesnt control other stuff right? not going to lose any other features disconnecting it?

 

I'd wager they mashed a pin on your mirror connector. You're probably gonna want to fix it. I expect it to whine if you just unplug the module.

You might be able to get someone with a Tech II to shut off the option.

Good luck!

 

My brother in law had the problem of the onstar draining the battery on his 08 northstar buick. after 3 or 4 trips to the dealer, modules replaced, etc.... the battery still drained. He just pulled the fuse, and no more draining.

 

There is no "problem" disconnecting the VCIM, however it will set one or more DTC's. In some model years and option configurations, the bluetooth functionality is fulfilled by the VCIM so you may experience a problem here. Since yours is the pre-dual mode era, you won't have too much to worry about, but I'd caution most people from disconnecting it if there is ever a chance it may be used again. Some vehicles have a backup battery in the OnStar module itself that will allow it to communicate crash alert information to OnStar in the event vehicle power is interrupted in a collision. Once this kicks in, the backup battery will provide power until it is drained (even if you plug the module back in). Service is then required before the module is restored to original function.

 

Finally pulled off the side in the trunk. Is it the box all the way on the back side that has several different wire connectors on it or is it the skinny one with one big wire connector on top that is mounted on the wheelwell?

 

It is directly in front of the tail lamp assembly and has several connectors. You'll notice it has two coax cables connected, as well as "typical" wiring harnesses. The one mounted on the wheel well is the suspension control module.

 

Ya, I disconnected that one and The car wouldnt start and kept telling me to shift to park when i was. Then when I plugged it back in stabylity system, traction system and other things were offline. Is there just one connector to do or something? What can i do to rid me of onstar?

 

So this is the module you disconnected?

 

Ya, and the car went nuts... well everything except the bottom blue one, couldnt pop it off with fingers so was gonna do that later when I socket wrench and could get to it from the other side. Would that make a diff, I'll try with it all off. But does this thing control a lot more on the car than the onstar?

 

The blue coax on the bottom won't make a difference. Let me check a couple of things and post later, but it is only the OnStar module and shouldn't affect the rest of the car. I'll have to check schematics...

 

K, thanks. Dont know why there would be all this other crazy stuff going on, but seems like things lways control more than one thing

 

I don't understand why you wouldn't take the car back to whomever screwed it up in the first place and have them fix it???

 

Okay, I had forgotten that GM ran the high speed LAN bus right through the OnStar module. Without this connected, it will interrupt these signals to other modules in the car.

The one connector that you really need to leave plugged in is C4. This is a black connector with 12 cavities and you'll find 5 wires attached. The one that really needs to be unplugged is C1 which is white and has 16 cavities. This is where power is supplied. You'll find 6 wires attached to this one. It's probably easiest to leave them all plugged in, except this one. Other than power, this connector only provides wiring for the buttons and indicators on the mirror.

To help make this simple, keep in mind that no two connectors are the same colour and have the same number of cavities. This should make it easy to figure out which is C1 and which is C4.

 

I was wondering if there's a workaround to using the Onstar service, but figure a way to use the options (reading email, checking traffic, etc.) couldn't find a question like that asked. Maybe it's a stupid one. LOL!

 

When my OnStar went apesh!t and started calling OnStar emergency every two minutes I just removed the fuse under the right rear seat, it quit doing it, and everything else worked fine. My problem turned out to be the connection plug hanging half out of the mirror. We figured the problem was that the wife dislodged it while trying to hang the handicap card from the mirror.

 

The fuse would be a good option, however looking at the schematic for 2005, the OnStar fuse is shared with the radio so removing it will disable this also.

 

Ya, the fuse is what I looked for first but was disappointed to find that it was a combo with the radio. Thanks for the info ddalder, I will try just disconnecting that plug, but what I think has set off my problem was that after getting the roof reappolstered they didnt reconnect the connections on the mirror. If those wires only connect to the mirror and don't disable any other part of onstar then dont think this will do anything. I'll post my results later on today from disconnecting C1. Do you think as long as I leave C4 plugged in that disconnection more than C1 will help or that those will also f-up more systems in the car?

 

I should have been a little more clear in my post. Other than power, that connector isn't wired to anything except the mirror controls. Give it a shot and let us know. I suspect this will help. Given the additional information about having the headliner recovered, you should definitely try ensuring the connector is properly attached to the mirror to see if that solves your problem.

 

Well my batt dead today of course so will try again tomorrow. It's dying after 1 day right now but just want to get rid of onstar anyways cuz my car was still dying after 4-5 days before, think onstar to blame

 

If you're sure the battery is good, you may be wrong about Onstar beng the only issue. Dealer service may actually save money in the long run.

 

I would say replace the battery. My battery would die 4-5 days and eventually it got down to 1-2 days. My battery was the original one and replaced the battery and went on vacation and the car sat for 10 days. Got back and boom it started right up. The STS is a hog for power but if you are consistantly draining that quick I would say get the battery tested. Sure onstar even when activated and subscribed to can receive a message every 15 minutes or so but the battery should not die from it. It even stops working automatically after 72 hours and by design should not drain any power after this time.

 

As batteries age, material from the plates sloughs off and falls to the area at the bottom of the battery called the gutter. When the gutter eventually fills, the material is piled high enough to short the plates and discharge the battery. One of the ways a manufacturer builds a "long life" battery is to design the case with deeper gutters.