If the wireless charging pad in your Silverado has stopped working, the good news is that most of the time it is not broken. It is one of five things, and four of them cost nothing to fix.
Here is how to work out which one you have, in the order that takes the least time.
First, a 60 second test
Before you go any further, find out whether the problem is the phone or the truck.
- Take your phone out of its case
- Put it face up in the middle of the charging pad
- Wait 15 seconds
If it charges now, your case is the problem and you can skip to the next section. If it still does nothing, try a second phone. If the second phone charges, it is your phone. If neither charges, it is the truck, and you want the last two sections.
Cause 1: your case is in the way
This is the most common cause by a wide margin, and it is not always the obvious thick rugged case.
Wireless charging works by passing power between two coils that need to sit close together. Anything that adds distance or interferes with the field will slow it down or stop it entirely. The usual culprits:
- Cases thicker than about 3 mm. Rugged and armoured cases are often well past this
- Metal plates. If you have ever used a magnetic vent mount, there may be a steel disc stuck to the back of your phone or inside the case. This blocks charging completely
- Wallet cases. Cards sit directly between the coils. It will not charge, and you can damage the cards
- PopSockets and ring grips. They hold the phone off the pad
Fix: take the case off and test. If that solves it, you know what to do.
Cause 2: the phone will not stay on the coil
This is the one that catches out most truck owners, and it is the reason the problem feels intermittent rather than constant.
The factory pad has no magnets. It relies on your phone sitting still in roughly the right spot. That is fine in a car on smooth pavement. It is not fine in a truck on a gravel road, a job site, or anything with a washboard surface. The phone walks a few millimetres off the coil, charging stops, and by the time you look down it has been sitting there doing nothing for twenty minutes.
The tell is simple: does it charge fine when the truck is parked, and quit when you are moving? If so, this is your problem. Nothing is broken.
Fix: there is no free fix for this one. You can try nudging the phone into the exact centre every time, but you will be doing it constantly. The real answer is magnetic alignment, which the factory pad does not have.
Cause 3: it is charging, it is just slow
Plenty of people think their charger has failed when it is actually working exactly as designed, just far slower than they expect.
The factory wireless charging in these trucks was specified years ago, for phones that were smaller and less power hungry than what you are carrying now. A modern phone with the screen on, running navigation and playing music over Bluetooth, can burn power faster than a low output pad can put it back in. You plug in with 40% and arrive with 38%, and it looks like a fault.
The tell: plug the same phone into a cable in the same truck. If the cable charges it quickly and the pad barely holds it steady, the pad is working, it is just underpowered for what you are asking.
Fix: use a cable for long drives, or move to a higher output charger.
Cause 4: heat
Wireless charging generates heat, and so does a phone sitting in a closed console in summer. Phones throttle or stop charging entirely when they get too warm. It is a protection feature, not a failure.
If your charger works fine in the morning and quits by mid afternoon, or works all winter and gives you trouble every July, this is why.
Fix: leave the console lid open on hot days, keep the phone out of direct sun before you set it down, and take heavy cases off in summer since they trap heat.
Cause 5: the module or the 12V circuit has actually failed
If you have worked through everything above, tested two phones with no case, and still get nothing, then the hardware is the problem.
Two things to check before you condemn the charger itself:
- The fuse. The console charging module runs off a circuit that can blow like any other. Check your owner's manual for the right one
- The 12V outlet in the console. Plug something else into it. If that is dead too, your problem is upstream of the charger
If the 12V outlet works and the pad still does nothing with two different phones and no cases, the module has failed.
What order to check things in
- Case off, phone in the centre of the pad, wait 15 seconds
- Try a second phone
- Does it work parked but quit when moving? Alignment
- Does a cable charge much faster? Underpowered pad
- Only a problem when hot? Heat protection
- Nothing works with two phones and no cases? Check the fuse and the 12V outlet, then the module
Most people find their answer in the first three steps.
When replacing the module makes sense
If your factory pad has genuinely failed, or if it works but is too slow and too easy to knock out of alignment to be useful, replacing the module is worth considering.
We build the HyperVolt 2.0 for exactly this. It drops into the same factory console location and charges at 25 W, with MagSafe-style magnetic alignment so the phone stays on the coil over rough ground, and a raised surface that clears big camera bumps and fits phones up to 3.5 inches wide. It runs off the 12V outlet already inside your console, so there is no cutting and no splicing, and it takes under 30 minutes with basic tools.
One thing to check first: the HyperVolt replaces an existing factory wireless charging console. If your truck did not come with a charging pad from the factory, this is not the right part. Not sure? Send us a photo of your console and we will tell you straight.
It fits 2014-2018 Silverado and Sierra, 2019 Silverado and Sierra 2500HD, and 2015-2020 Yukon, Tahoe and Suburban. You can watch the install before you buy.