Hey guys you have been wonderful in answering all my questions and now I have another. We ended up buying a new alternator, will recondition the old one, husband installed it all but the battery had gone flat. Recharged the battery and it has been running fine for the last few days but went to drive it this afternoon and it wouldn't start. Same old clickety click and no go. Col is thinking the battery as its a few months shy of 3 years old. His concern is that there could be an underlying problem as it seems strange to have both alternator and battery go within such a short space of each other - or we could just be plain unlucky right now when it comes to cars.