Advice needed please help

[Phonesurgeon]

I bought a fiat punto 1.2 active back in august 2004(a 53 reg) after having all sorts of problems(rectified under warranty) including head gasket failure(on a 53 plate i never heard of).

The query i have is with the famous red key, that i never had with my car.

In the owner handbook it clearly state the procedure for starting the car in an emergency(i.e. when the immobiliser has kicked in) and it mentiones either the red key or a code.

I never received either and went back to the dealership where i bought from only to be told that from july 2003 fiat does not supply either of them (mine's registered in september 2003) and in that case they would have to send a tow-truck to get my car in their garage and in the meantime they need to apply for the code directly from fiat.

Here is where it gets interesting.

I spoke with a guy at fiat uk in slough and he told without any doubt that the code and/or the key should have been supplied to me at the time of purchase, but the dealer state exactly the contrary.

I have tried to complain about this to fiat uk only to be told that this sort of complain should be dealt at local stage(i.e. the dealer had to "deal" with this issue) but they refuse shifting responsability to fiat uk.

Can anyone help?

[Rob S]

You could write to Fiat UK and get it put in writing, and that would give you some leverage with the dealer.