I have a ford Mondeo Ghia diesel, I am not sure which Mk but it was first registered on 31st march 2007. 

it has an intermittent fault when starting which is really annoying and hard to reproduce. Periodically when you turn the key to start the engine, it makes a kinda screeching sounds but the engine doesn't fire and the sound lasts for the duration that you have the key turned. I am fairly clueless about cars, so I don't know if this is the starter motor turning or not. If you take the key out and try again, then sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. So far it has started eventually every-time but today it was about an hour after the first attempt that it finally started and after we had called out the RAC. The RAC man said that our battery was a bit low and this could of been the problem but I am not convinced because it started under its own power in the end. 

I dont really want to take it to a garage, who will probably charge me a load of cash too look at it and say they couldnt find anything or charge me even more to fix something that isnt the problem. 

Any advice would be welcome, 

many thanks. 

Starter,

DMF,

??

DMF starting to break up. It clogs the starter up hence the screeching. Mine went on for a good year before it finally gave up.