blaine

My car is currently being trucked cross country to me in an enclosed carrier and I had family link activated yesterday to track it's progress. Without knowing the details of how the OnStar system functions i'm wary of checking the location of the truck too often for fear of draining the battery prematurely.

Does anyone have any information on this? Is the OnStar system constantly connected to their network and i'm just sending a request to something that is already draining power regardless of my actions? It seems to take about 1-2 minutes to locate my cars location when I check with the OnStar website. I'm very interested in the technical details of how the system operates. Thanks!

runutzzzzz

I *think* that OnStar times out after 3 days or so of not being started. I was tracking my car and it stopped tracking on the 4th day.

blaine

Thanks for the reply. If it's just going to sleep after 3 days either way I guess I won't worry about it.

blaine

I wanted to update this thread for anyone in the future who may be searching. The family link has worked perfectly for the last 7 days tracking the car in an enclosed carrier. I'm quite pleased it didn't cut out after 3 days.

KenHorse

Cheaper to have gotten the rail car # from GM and use the free Union Pacific automated 800 trace line

blaine

My car came from an out of state dealer in an enclosed car carrier (by truck) and family link only cost $4.

KenHorse

Gotcha

Zymurgy

If your OnStar is activated, why not use the OnStar app which includes geo location of the vehicle? It's free.