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Mazda are calling on the owners of some 88,000 units of the Mazda 3, 6 and CX-5 worldwide to send their vehicles in for a voluntary recall. Cars built between October 2012 and January 2014 are affected due to a software issue with the i-ELOOP energy recovery system.

According to Mazda USA spokesperson Beverly Braga, the control program in the ECU designed to protect the capacitor the energy is stored in is "reacting hyper sensitively when the alternator belt gets wet and slippage occurs". This can affect acceleration and in severe cases cause the engine to stall.

The fix, involving a simple ECU reflash, will take under an hour to be applied. No accidents or injuries resulting from the glitch have been reported so far.

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Out of the 88,000 cars, around 38,000 of them are located in Europe, 27,600 in Japan and 6,500 in the US. Over here, the i-ELOOP system is fitted as standard on the Mazda 6 2.5 as well as the Mazda 3, but local distributor Bermaz Motor has yet to announce whether any of the cars sold in Malaysia have been affected by the recall.

This is second recall Mazda has faced regarding i-ELOOP – last year, the company recalled 15,000 units of the Mazda 6 globally (including 40 units in Malaysia) to rectify a fault with the car's DC/DC convertor that could cause the unit to overheat, resulting in a potential fire hazard.