Pontiac Repair: Pontiac Montana elictriacal system, montana sv6, pontiac montana

Question
I was driving to work this morning and the all my lights turned off and on a few times, After this the battery warning light came on. The engine continued to run normal. Started with no problems after eight hours of being parked. The battery light on the dash remains on. Where should I start to repair this problem.

Answer
Hi Steven:

is just the battery light on no other warning lights? If that is it it's some sort of a alternator charging issue. You can stop by one of the buig box auto parts stores and have the van scanned for codes for free and see if there are any charging related codes stored. If so there could be an issue with the control (turn on ckt) for the alternator or it could be a bad alternator. If you keep driving around with that light on the battey will eventually die due to the laternator not charging. The system is a bit complex being that the engine computer controls the charge rate of the alternator. I don't know why the light went on and off and on again. I can tell you that one those vans there were issues with the batteries leaking acit out onto the battery cables and causing a bad connection both the older montana Pre 2005 and the montana SV6 as well. you can see it on the SV6 becaue it has top post battery cables the older side post batteries you can see it it build up between the battery and the cable. good luck :-)