My Marea is unfortunately starting to live up to its name.

After looking underneath I realised that the underseal was bubbling along the edges by the sills, after scraping it off I found the metal was quite rusty and in one place there was a small hole in the floor, anyways i've filled the hole and Waxoiled the whole floor pan, hopefully it'll keep the rust off a bit longer.

A tip for anyone with a Marea check the along the edge of the sill and press the undersealant to see if it feels bubbly and can be pressed in, if it is I recommend you do what i've done above otherwise the floorpan will rust out!

How old is it? It might still be under paintwork warranty. If it hasn't had any accident damage in that area ( the prime cause of trouble ) then it should be covered.

It's unusual for them to rust. I reckon it's been hit. The paintwork warranty requires checking by Fiat at set periods, few adhere to it and Fiat won't honour it unless the car has been presented for checking.

Mine was similar, on an R reg - bit rusty but no holes.
I took all the underseal off parallel to the sill, removed as much of the rust as humanly possible, treated with Zinc primer and underseal.

Pete,

Had yours been accident damaged? Or just happenned?

Pretty sure it hasn't been crashed.
Where the underseal had failed it looks like wear and tear - just stuff thrown up underneath from the front wheels.

Hmmm something for every Marea owner to keep an eye on. Once saw a similar thing on an early Cinq Sporting where it showed age on the inside wheelarches yet the milometer differred in opinion. I went with the age of the wheelarches and walked away from the deal. I figured that if it had only done 18,000 miles and was stripped to the metal where the sill comes up to the drivers wheelarch then it wasn't a good purchase. Instead I bought a Cinq SX with more miles on it but better paint condition. OK I'm way off the point here!

Anyhow, stuff like this it would be good to have a FAQ/diagram/photo from whoever suffers from it and their model number so we can work out if its a version issue or something we are all going to have to be paranoid about.

I used to belong to a club where we did that for the Spyder - swapped photos and diagrams of the troublespots.

Its a P reg so out of the warranty now i'd assume.

I'm pretty sure it hasn't been accident damaged as all the paint on the car (except the rear bumper) looks very original. Also the rust is on both sides of the car. I'll just keep an eye on it. I might do another coat of Waxoil this weekend just to be sure.

Thanks for the shout. I'll have to start checking my P reg now.

The warranty won't be any good unless it has all the dealer inspection stamps up to date.

I ant overly bothered anyways I just didn't want it to get any worse! Just thought i'd warn other peeps so they can check! At least it aint rusty arches and chassis legs like Mondy's of a similar age get!