As for a little history on the car, we bought it new in May of 06. As of today, the vehicle has about 58k on it.

Over the last year, I've had a few occasions where I had to jump the wife's Quest. Typically, this would be from cleaning out the car and running the radio for a long time, leaving lights on in the vehicle overnight, etc....

I thought this was a bit odd but... after the jump things were fine.

About 2 months ago, I noticed a lot of corrosion around the positive terminal. I cleaned it off real good and checked the water levels in the battery. They were a little low but not much. Topped the battery off and off she went.

About two days ago, my son was driving the car. He said the lights on the dash went wacky and the vehicle, all the sudden, would not run. The vehicle would jump star and idle but would die when we tried to move. A 20 minute charge via jumper got enough in the battery to get us the rest of the way home.

I pulled the battery and took it to autozone and they said the battery was bad (they charged it and put it on a tester). So, I bought a new battery.

My question is... when I was taking the battery out, I noticed the corrosion had reappeared. Not terribly but...I have an 04 vehicle that is spotless.

Also, I noticed that the positive terminal was not as tight as I would of liked. It was snug but had some minute play to it. It could have been tighter.

My gut is telling me that I still need to replace the alternator. Could it be though that the corrosion and slightly loose terminal could be the problem? From my limited mechanical memory, it seems to me that a vehicle will still run on a bad battery but not a bad alternator. Is there an instance where the vehicle will not run on a bad battery?

Thank for any help offered!
Modified by masbirdies at 10:59 AM 3/15/2008

i have seen bad battery's, one's that are so weak that the alternator is not capable of charging the battery and running the car. corrosion on nissan terminals is like a cancer, just when you think its gone it comes back full force again. after cleaning and tightening the terminals use an anti corrosive protection spray to help prevent the corrosion from returning.

also alot of part stores are able to test alternators and some do it for free. it wouldn't hurt to have the alternator tested if you are unsure of its condition.

Ok, I installed the new battery and everything started fine. However, the break and battery lights are flashing erratically.

So, I would continue to guess that the alternator is the culprit. Anything else worth testing?>??

take whole vehicle to autozone & they'll perform a charging system test on the parking lot for free as well... instead of removing the unit to have it bench-tested

I have the same problem with loose terminals on the battery posts. I dropped off my vehicle at a Nissan dealership and asking them to replace the terminals since I found that it was loose (but slightly better fit) on the original battery. I feel that they should provide terminals that properly fit. Also, I did have my alternator tested and it is fine. My problem was with the battery.