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Spider-Infested Mazdas Recalled

Posted 3/04/2011 10:00 am by

The Mazda6 (not pictured: thousands of awful spiders infesting its fuel system)

There are quality control problems, and then there are pest control problems.  Mazda’s cars run fine, but there’s a little spider problem that’s required Mazda to issue a recall on 2009 and 2010 Mazda6 sedans.  Some 52,000 Mazda6 sedans were recalled due to a spider infestation in the fuel tank.  Apparently, spiders really love to spin their webs inside the car’s evaporative canister vent line.

It sounds funny, but it’s really not.  The spider infestations discovered in some Mazda6 sedans can cause fires and cracks in the car’s fuel system; the evaporative vent line is the line that sucks air into the gas tank and keeps the fuel properly pressurized.  Without that line, the car runs a serious risk of having problems in the future.

Plus, have you SEEN a yellow sac spider?  Just looking at the thing gives me the heebie-jeebies (my issues with spiders are long-running and well-known, regardless of spider size or poison-based killing capacity).

To prevent this from happening, Mazda will inspect and repair the fuel system, as well as installing a spring to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.  Oddly enough, the recall covers only the 4-cylinder engine, not the 6-cylinder model.  Apparently spiders like fuel economy?

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