Hi

I stopped my 1.9 MJ outside my local grocers shop and got back in 5 minutes later and the battery was absolutley DEAD. Turning the key just resulted in the dash lights going out and the starter just giving a click noise. I had heard of modern batteries just suddenly dying without warning but this was the first time it had happened to me. I had a set of jump leads in the back so I called a friend who came to give a jump start but the engine would hardly turn over without starting. I soon diagnosed that the jump leads were total rubbish and even though the cables looked to be thick and chunky the conductor cores were only less than the thickness of a pencil lead and the method of (non) connection to the clips was guarranteed not to work!! Anyway I got a local garage to come and start the car, it started immediately and they installed a new calcium battery and all is now OK.

I had been expecting this situation as the car is now 4 years old.

A few years ago I had the same on an older car. After a long journey & a stop at the local shop for a pint of milk the car refused to start.
Breakdown came out about half hour later, whacked on their decent jump leads & she fired up. diagnosed battery death.
Went out & bought a brand new battery & all was well.
For a while.
Until the next long-ish journey.
Turned out to be the insulation in the starter. With the engine allowed to get hot enough, the copper inside the windings had expanded slightly with the heat, causing the system to short - the battery was dumping all its power straight to earth so not even an attempt to start.
Fitted a new starter & even the old, so-called, dead battery worked fine.
The theory was that the breakdown lorry had taken long enough for the windings to cool & contract enough for everything to work as it should.

Who knows? Although I was, later, told that the clue was in the fact that even a dying battery would put out something - enough to turn the engine even very slowly maybe once before dying completely.

I replaced the battery in my 1.9jtd last year (6y/o) as it was getting sluggish on the cold winter morning startups (engine turned slower & very slow to fire up). It turned out to be the exact same battery as used in my lad's 1.2 fiesta The new, recommended, replacement battery has double the Amp hour & shedloads more Cold Crank Amps. So far, even the coldest mornings have posed no problems.

During the cold months, I use a battery charger at night for my two daily drivers about every 4-6 weeks, keeps the stressed battery's 100%, so they last years longer!