Today my 1.4 16v would not start. Turned the key and nothing happened as far as the starter motor was concerned. AA man found a broken battery earth wire where it is bolted to a point underneath the battery. It seems the cable from the gearbox to that point is a bit too short and constant vibration can lead to fracture. Worth checking if your car is over 4 years old.

There are several bolt holes on the front facing side of the gear box. Can anyone tell me which one the battery earth cable should bolt to.

is it not marked in some way when you took off to replace or a threaded hole..I had to move mine to another hole on the gearbox fixing as when I went round cleaning the earth points the gearbox bolt that fixed the cable sheared so rather than faff about with drilling the hole out and re-threading just used cleaned up another hole that was part of the same gearbox casing and had a good thick casing metal to attach to, not had any problems, just make sure the metal part of gearbox is part that was origenally fixed to nice and thick metal and shiny clean for good contact and as you have found does not put the cable under any stretching stress

Thanks. I think there are 3 threaded holes on the front of the gearbox casing, so perhaps it doesn't matter which one is used as long as the earth cable is not tightly stretched.