If you turn the car off, does the car ready icon on the driver display turn green? If not, the car is off. Doesn't matter if the displays are on or off.

 

Yes, the car ready is on, along with climate control, radio, lights, everything.
A few weeks ago I pulled out of the garage to wash the car. Didn't even realize it was on until I was washing the front and realized the headlights were on.
No, I did ot turn on the keep on control.

 

I think the main issue is GM tried to automate start up and shut down to make life easier for the owner. The problem with that is it built around an expected owner/driver behavior, and deviation from that behavior makes the automation work against you.

I doubt there is anything random about your experiences. You’ll need to fully understand the logic in the car and then create a protocol that allows you to leave the fob in the car, if that’s what you want. Personally I would just take the fob with me and everything should work right. We park in enclosed, locked garages but keys and fobs are never left in any vehicle.

Computer inputs that affect power on-off logic are the driver seat belt, driver door open/close, whether the car has seen a drive or reverse and park cycle, and the brake pedal. If your shutdown symptoms appear different sometimes, consider which of those inputs may have been activated differently.

An example might be like if you got in car and closed door. Car turned on. You opened door but car doesn’t shut down because no drive cycle occurred. You turn off car manually with door open. You get out with fob still in car. Close door snd car will turn on because it thinks you just got in car with fob in your possession. You come back a minute later and discover the car is already on.

Another gotcha is accidentally touching the brake pedal on the way out causes an off car to turn back on.

 

Some behavior seen on other Ultium vehicles is if you have your foot on the brake while you open the door the vehicle will remain on.

 

That does make sense. I will pay attention next time and see if that resolved it.
Thank you.

 

I would recommend keeping the key far from the vehicle and keeping the vehicle locked while parked. This ensures it fully shuts off and doesn’t drain the 12v battery.

 

The car is designed to turn itself off and on regardless of driver behavior. Just don't concern yourself if it has or hasn't turned itself off. If you are willing to leave the keys in it, leaving it on until it automatically turns itself off after 5 minutes of no driver input shouldn't matter. It warns the driver after the 5 minutes that the vehicle will be turning off in a minute. This is why it has a button to leave the vehicle on for 60 minutes if one wanted to remain in car. The computer system in a full state of "on" uses a negligible amount of energy especially for 5 minutes.

 

Make sure NOT to touch yer brisker prods when exiting. That will turn there car on again even if you shut it off via the infotainment button.

 

Sometimes it will say "key detected press brake or close door to start". So closing door will start it if you leave the key in. But as somebody else said it will shutoff after sometimes.

 

We have an unattached garage, about 20' behind our house. We charge in the garage with an Ultium 240V, 48 amp charger. Car programmed to charge 11pm-6am. It'll often finish charging at 5:30 am or so, when I'm usually sleeping. BUT, every time I happen to be up and look out at the garage, I can see through the garage windows that the car is "On."
After an hour it'll shut off. And yes, the car is "OFF" when it's plugged it.
The FOB is not in the car. It's in the house.

 

Do you have cabin pre-conditioning selected with your scheduled charging? That will keep the car pseudo-on beyond the departure time when your charge is done. If you don't eventually drive it, it turns off.

 

I suggest getting a Faraday pouch for your Equinox keys. I bought a couple of these on Amazon. My wife's car also has keyless start. I don't know if GM keys are vulnerable to wireless cloning as are older Japanese car models but I got these just in case. Get one of these pouches and put your keys inside when you leave the keys in the car.

 

I don't know if GM keys are vulnerable to wireless cloning

Our key fobs have a motion detector - if it is still (not moving) for a certain amount of time, the fob circuits go to "sleep" and thieves trying to hack your fob won't have access.

 

I've been experiencing a similar problem, ever since the last system update. I'll park, open the door, the display turns off as it should, but then I get the low steady chime that continues even after I close the door. 5 minutes later and it's still chiming. I'd have to climb in, press the brake, and then turn the vehicle off through the main control panel.