Question about a ford escort...need good advice?

your fiance is right on the money.but it could be that your battery also could be at fault.

For starters,
Have you had the battery checked yet ? Jumpstart ?
Voltage test from the Alternator ?

Lets's start with that...

It could be the starter, the battery or the battery connections.
If the battery is bad, that might be the battery itself has failed, or the alternator has failed to charge it.
However just a single click would indicate your fiance is right....
Better marry him, he seems to know what he's talking about!

There are 3 things that make an engine go.

1) gasoline to burn.
2)oxygen so the gasoline will burn.
3) electric spark so the gasoline and oxygen will burn.

If one of these is reduced or missing, then it won't work at all.

Of course, the gasoline burns, running the engine, which in turn makes the electricity for the spark plugs to burn the gas and oxygen.

However, a bad starter will not stop a car that is already running. It's only problem is in starting a car the next time after you turn it off.
With a manual tranny, you don't even really need a starter, if you can start your car on a hill, roll it down the hill, and pop the clutch in 2nd gear, it'll start up the car. That's what's nice about manual trannies.
From someone who's had a bad starter with manual tranny and couldn't pay for new one, you find the places first before you turn off the car!!

Saying that the problem is "the engine" is like saying "your makeup is wrong.' You would need to know what specifically is wrong, since most of it might be okay. Same thing with an engine.
And engine, as I'm sure you know, is a bit of lots of small parts of machinery to make it go.

The main question I wonder about is why did your car die in traffic?
That means taht either the gasoline or the air wasn't getting to your engine. If either is a problem, and you keep trying to start the car but can't, then you run down the battery, which is the only electricity to power the starter. Once the battery runs down enough, then it can't power the starter and it just clicks. The starter isn't broken, it just doesn't have enough power to start up, and it takes a HUUUGE amt of power from the battery to start a car.
But a bad starter will click also, meaning that it's broken. But the main problem of why you died in traffic is still the key factor.

If your fuel pump was breaking, or your fuel filter was bad, either would prevent the fuel from getting to the engine, which would then stop the car from running, thusly your engine dies in traffic. And either or both problems don't always happen all at once. Usually they start showing problems over a period of time before completely going out. Same with a starter, usually won't start car, and then it gets it running as you keep cranking on the starter to work.

Importnat questions to try:

Does the car start at all now? Can you start the car with a jump from someone or using an auto battery charger?
If you can get it started by jumping it, does it keep running?
Does the starter keep clicking? It should click only when you turn on the ignition, or try to start the car.
If it clicks only once, then something is wrong with the starter.
If it clicks a few times or several times while you hold the key in start position, then that means that there isn't enough power to get the starter working properly.

But again, a bad starter has nothing to do with causing a car to STOP running. That means that either the gas or air isn't getting to the engine.

Of course, there might be one other possibility, and it's not a good one.
Modern cars have tons of sensors one them. Sensors to monitor the oxygen level, to monitor the engine rpm speeds, to monitor exhaust gases, to monitor engine temperature, just to name a few. Since your car is 1999, it can have many, many different sensors or switches that one of them might have gone wrong. It's hard to figure out just by your basic description.
But that's the basic outline of what you can check out for yourself.
My biggest question is, can you get the car started at all now, and if you can, does it stay running. If it stops again, then something is wrong with the gasoline or air. Heck, it even might be bad gas. That's not so hard to get as you think. Consider how long it was since you last got gas. If you got gas on way to store when it stopped running, then that's a very strong possibility. BAd gas won't run a car worth a damn.....at all. And that's a bad thing, because it costs hundreds of $$ to fix the engine then.