Turn on lights while driving- engine nearly dies.

[quote:613aa85bd4="lowandslow1"]Pontiac Transport, 1996, 204k miles. Was driven about 1/2 hour, parked for 5 minutes, restarted and pulled into traffic, turned on lights and car nearly dies. Engine runs rough- check engine light comes on, door open light and sliding door chime come on(its closed). Barely make it off the road and engine dies. Try a restart within one minute and engine runs fine, car runs fine, no check engine light. Whats up??? I checked the battery cables and they are on tight.[/quote:613aa85bd4]

You checked the cables at the battery, but did you check the other end of the ground cable? It should be grounded to your engine, and if it gets loose or corroded, it can give you fits.

Check your alternator... it's likely go a weak or no charge. Sounds like your running off of the battery which will often recover enough to start a warm engie after a few minutes but will not have sufficien jiuce to keep th engine running wth the lights on. A weak alternator may not trigger the dash light and still lack the power to sustain the lights. Also flashing dash light beahior can be symptomatic of a low battery.