Pontiac Aztek

I bought a used 01 Pontiac Aztek. After test driving it once and than driving it an hour to my home appeared to be no problems. Parked in driveway overnight. Next morning went to take for oil change and inspection and noticed fluid puddle in driveway. When driving to mechanic noticed power steering sounded different and not right. Advised mechanic of difference when steering and asked if it could be power steering fluid or if coolant. They said not power steering fluid probably coolant. They called and said rack and pinion needed to be replaced for $525 and after some thought felt like had to be done. Then received call saying front tire rods and rear brake pads needed to be replaced. Everything else was okay and should drive for long time once repairs made. At this point felt like invested and car for daughter so had that fixed totaling $770. When driving it to gas station right after leaving shop noticed gas gauge not working properly. Also after driving it for a few days daughter said gauges going crazy and lights, blinkers, door locks etc. like they were possessed when started car or while driving car but wouldn't die. Which continues to be an intermittent problem but one occurring often. I started researching crazy possessed gauges problem on Internet and came up with bad alternator, battery or ground wire. After reading several blogs sounded like even though alternator was the first thing people assumed problem that was but normally not the issue (some replaced and still had problem). Than the problem with battery drain started coming into play. She would go to start car after driving it with no problems night before and car wouldn't start and needed to be jumped but would not need long to get jumped. Tried going to autozone to run check on battery and alternator and was told battery too low to check. Charged battery and took back to check and said both reading good. Than daughter drove an hour from home to friends and went to leave and battery totally dead, couldn't jumpstart it and key would not come out of ignition. Read up on that and found dead battery or car not recognizing in park can cause key to not come out. While reading more on all problems came across bad BCM sounding like could be problem too. Probably likely fix. I know that was long story but here is my actual questions. Could the shop who replaced rack and pinion, brake pads and tire rods created the other problems beginning by messing up or pinching wire or messing up BCM or something since problem didn't start until after work they did? Also, I think battery may needed to be replaced just to get home what do you think? Should I start by replacing battery than use multimeter to check fuses (taking several hours) for battery drain or is it for sure a bad BCM and I should just do replacement? It could even be just bad battery cables. I don't even know how or where to check for bad ground wires. Or do I start somewhere else? I feel like I know what possible problems are but don't know what order I should go in to eliminate the possibilities one by one. HELP!!!!!!?

If you have a volt tester,test the power draw off battery while taking each fuse out of panel,if the draw stops when any paticular fuse is removed you have found your source of draw,if you don,t find and issue.could be your BCM as you say,or your iginiton switch,hope this helps.

I have a 2001 Pontiac "Pain In My" Aztek also. Take your battery to NAPA. Tell them tio run a cold cranking amp test on your car. Auto Zone, Advance Auto, and mechanics will not test it for that. I had the same problem with a brand new battery that kept dying on me and would pout the security light on and shut the car down. After 8 months of trying to figure out what was wrong with it, a friend told me to take it to NAPA. My battery wasn't putting out enough cold cranking amps tio keep it charged.