Ok, I am not quite sure what you mean.
If you are using the "Text - Multicolour" display mode, then you also need to set the Colour Matrix colour to any colour >7 to actually see a multi-colour (wide pixel) character.
ie. That particular mode (on the VIC-II and in CharPad) is able to show both hi-res and wide-pixel chars on-screen at the same time.
Bit 3 of the Colour Matrix colour becomes the mode switch.
But maybe you mean something else.