My girlfriend has a 2000 Maxima. Last night the parking brake and charging system trouble light (battery light) both came on at the same time while she was driving.
The brakes were replaced a few months ago and work fine. The brake fluid is just below "MAX". The battery is two years old. We started and shut off the car several times with no appearent drain on the battery.

Any ideas of what is wrong?

 

Alternator going bad or the battery cable is making incomplete contact.

 

agree with alternator.... also check ur bulbs make sure one of them isnt out... could just so happen that u lost a bulb and another problem at the same time

 

alternator definitly. Just went through it. Here's a write-up (same for all 5th gens)

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=488293

 

Nissan's dummy light combo to tell if the alternator is bad.

I concur...

...bad alternator.

 

Thanks guys. I really appreciate it. We dropped the car off at a local service center. I'll call them in the morning and tell them what I learned. Hopefully there won't be much of a diagnostics charge.

Thanks again.

 

you dropped it off for a 2 hour job? Fixing it is easy, just tedious.

 

alternator, just in case you weren't convinced yet

George, stop acting like you didn't call me and say "i have my brake and battery light on, what could it be??"