Close on the heels of Ford Motor’s Thursday recall of nearly 500,000 Escape and Maverick sport-utility vehicles over an issue with stuck throttles which can lead to unintended acceleration, Mazda revealed in a Friday announcement that it was recalling over 200,000 Tributes because of the same problem.

Giving the reason for the recall, Mazda said that it was due to “potential interference between the engine cover and the speed control cable” that as many as 217,500 Tributes – from model years 2001 through 2008 – equipped with V6 engines and speed control cable were being recalled.

According to an elaboration of the problem by Mazda, when the gas pedal is almost fully or fully depressed, the speed control cable of the under-recall Tributes can stick under the engine cover, forcing the throttle open and causing the vehicles to speed out of control.

Though Mazda, like Ford, is saying that the problem of unintended acceleration of the Tributes will be fixed by raising the engine covers in the SUVs, thereby giving the cable more clearance to avoid its getting stuck, auto safety experts are of the opinion that the recall is insufficient.

Auto safety experts feel that both Ford and Mazda should actually replace the ‘defective’ speed control cable in the SUVs being recalled --- similar to what Toyota did when it replaced floor mats that led to jamming accelerators and sticky gas pedals in the millions of US vehicles, which it recalled for unintended acceleration in 2009 and 2010.