I have just bought a 1998/R Fiat Marea Weekend TD100 ELX. I'm its third owner and we are planning continental touring holiday in it (to Italy).

Since buying it with its one blue key, I have learnt that I should have got a red key with it. I don't have one though.

How serious is this lack of red key? Would I be best to see if I can take the car back and either get a refund or swap it for something else, or is it not as serious an issue as I have got the impression from a Fiat main-dealer I later visited when the subject came up whilst I was buying touch-up paint?

I did spot another post in this forum pointing to http://codeman.org/fiat.html so maybe its not as serious as the main-dealer suggests. But is this something I should spend £170 on straight away, or can I safely wait until I have a problem (which may never occur anyway).

What I obviously don't want is to take a route that will leave car and faily stranded in Italy because of an electronics fault.

Any advice from those in the know and with experience would be much appreciated.

Hi,
You very rarely need the red key. I would get your blue key cloned though to give you a spare, this costs about £20/£30 at Timpsons, etc.
If you are going to break down, then Italy is the best place to do it
Do a search on red key if you want more info. There are a lot of posts on this site about them.

agree dont worry about it out of 9000 odd members only remember 2 people ever needing the red key

Thanks, both, for your sound advice whch has reassured me (a Fiat newbie) considerably.

When I searched on 'red key' in the forum I did notice that somebody had just given away a red and blue key with the same code number stamped on as my blue key has, is there any chance that this could be of use to me?

the number on the key isnt the code number,