Thanks for your replies folks. The car went back to the dealer today. The positive on the battery wasn't connecting due to the area being filthy (embarrassed!), the mechanic cleaned it up and sent me on my way. He checked the battery life etc and said all was fine. All free of charge too, so overall very pleased.
Fingers crossed the car won't give us any more trouble for a while as long as we keep on top of things!
My dads a parts manager for volvo so I already had him on the case to source a new battery at cost.. He would've probably fitted the new one if needed.
Thanks again, take care

You may be right Brewerdave1, but before you go about replacing the battery yourself, make sure you know your radio code, immobiliser code, and have the correct tools to do the job.. be prepared to get dirty and maybe get skinned knuckles.

or you could ask your Ford dealer ( who deals with this sort of thing day in day out) for his best price , I know that at our local garage we found this to be cheaper than the local branch of a certain car accessory store, wanted for just supplying the battery. If you don't ask you don't get.

My daughter had the same sort of fault with a 5 year old Corsa - we thought it might be the alternator ...but it was just a knackered battery - bit of advice,DON'T let the Ford dealer replace the battery - it'll cost the earth! Much cheaper to do it yourself.

Your best approach is to first book it straight back into the dealer at your earliest opportunity, the sooner the better, to firstly ascertain what has caused the problem. So far at least the dealers have acted reasonably by asking you to return the car to them for a inspection, some would try to fob you off without even looking.

Once this fault is diagnosed and established you will be in a much better position to dispute whether the cause has or has not been created by the mechanic, either missing something that should have been covered by the service, or whether the fault is a entirely unrelated and coincidental problem.

You can cross the bridge over fault / blame and remedial costs once the problem is diagnosed and after the facts are known. Whatever the outcome; often you may find they are prepared to waive any charges out of and as a gesture of goodwill, if not, ask if they would kindly be prepared to on this occasion as the close proximity of the fault to the service could just be related?.....you never know!

Hi all
I've a 2008 ford focus 1.8 diesel. It went in for it's service and mot last Friday to the ford dealer. Sailed through the mot with an advisory the centre exhaust box has slight corrosion but not leaking, I'll address this ASAP before it gets worse.
Anyway we brought it home, used it as normal over the weekend (shopping, visiting etc) and resumed business as usual on Monday. My partner takes it to work mon-fri (40 mile round trip) and I use it to go to work on a mon and tues night (about 15 miles round).
The car was running fine (as usual) until tues night, I came out of work at 9pm, unlocked the central locking with the key and got in.... Turned the ignition and NOTHING happened, no lights on the dash, no interior light, not even a sound when I turned the key. As a female in my 20s on a dark, quiet street I was a bit scared to say the least! Fortunately one of my colleagues passed and happened to have jump leads...we got the car started, I went round the block a few times before attempting to come home. I did get home safe and the car has again been running fine.
I phoned the ford garage on Wednesday and told them what happened, the said to bring the car in to get checked but we've missed them so far as my partners been in late from work (I know we prob shouldn't be driving it if there's a problem but circumstances have got in the way).
(thanks if you haven't fallen asleep reading this essay yet, lol!)
Tonight my partner was coming to pick myself and our daughter up from my parents when, again, the car died. I had to call green flag out to start it. He's arranged a lift to work tomorrow so I can take it to the garage (I hope they can fit me in, they were closed by the time this happened tonight).
So, basically, I'm looking for some advice. Surely this shouldn't be happening to a barely 4 year old car that gets a good run (and is driven carefully) every day? Could the service/mot mechanic have done something to my car? It's always run perfectly and I can't believe it's a coincidence these problems have started days after it's service/mot... Do I have any comeback if they say they can't find anything wrong with the car or their workmanship?
Any thoughts/advice gratefully revived!
L