Fingers crossed! it just seemed such a simple yet difficult to identify issue for John, we were all so certain of what it was, that this one took us by surprise!

Ok here's where we are so far took it to the garage Saturday morning the garage boss said he wanted to get involved as it was puzzling him to' so they started off with the usual battery and alt test and they said as has other garages both are working fine did the test with load on the battery and still test came back good! so then they took off all the positive and negative terminals around the engine bay and gave them a good clean up checked all connections from headlights replaced all the relevant fuses just for peace of mind traced all wires in and around the wing ant tested them still nothing came up out of the ordinary! advised me to go to ford them selves to do a more in depth test! asked them to fit the alternator anyway just for peace of mind but they some how managed to talk me out of it as a waste of time (wish i had been more assertive now) anyway picked the missus up at 5 from work drove to Sheffield to the mother in laws and to pick our daughter up and the flickering wasn't as bad as previous until i got of the motor way then it was like a disco on the front end i'm sure other cars thought i was flashing at them! so I rang my break down service told them it had "just started to happen" they came out put a different machine on the battery turned the car over and was reading in the green at 14 or so volts turned the lights on went down to 13.6 volts turned the stereo on went down to 13.1 volts turned the heater on went down again to 12.6 volts turned the rest of the electrics on and it went down to 12 volts lights started to flicker and then the volts kept going from 12 to 13 this test was done over a 10 minute period to get a more accurate reading . so it appears the alternator has an intermittent fault problem solved mobile mechanic coming tomorrow or Wednesday to replace so touch wood that's the end of this little problem but at least the rear fog and reverse lights are working now new bulb holder and new fuses bobs ya uncle all back on!

yeah the alternator does still seem to be the issue so I would hope that the replacement should resolve the issue.

Cleaning up all contacts wasnt a bad shout, it wont have hurt anything! I kind of hope it is the alternator, as I dont want to think you wasted money, but amongst other things, I want you to be able to take the receipt to the garage and say "that alternator you said wasnt the issue...." and do a bit of face rubbing :D

Ok guys alternator fitted yesterday and wait for it................no issues what so ever no flickering no heater fan dipping no nothing! runs sweet as a nut again so today i will be mainly visiting said expert garages just to inform them that their equipment isn't up to the job not just to rub faces.... (ok may be a bit!) but mainly if they have another car with similar issues come in, thank you so much everyone for the input glad to report this case is now officially closed!

Glad to hear it Neil, glad to be of service...

I wonder how much money we saved you over the long run with the diagnostics ;)