Bosch vs Kenmore dishwashers: an incident-report comparison

What this Bosch vs Kenmore comparison is based on#

The clearest difference between these two sets of incident reports is not which components they name but how concentrated they are. Kenmore's corpus has a single component that a majority of its reports mention. Bosch's does not have one at all — it has two that come close and then a long drop.

That is worth establishing before any row is read across. The Kenmore column is 461 CPSC SaferProducts filings against Kenmore dishwashers between 2011 and 2025, of which 246, or 53%, name the control board. Nothing else in that column reaches double digits: wiring or the power cord is second at 7%, the heating element third at 6%, the motor fourth at 5%. The Bosch column is 303 filings between 2011 and 2026, and its top is flat rather than pointed — wiring or the power cord at 29%, the control board at 28%, and then a fall to the motor at 2%.

What a concentrated corpus is and is not evidence of#

A 53% share means that of the reports Kenmore dishwashers generated, more than half pointed at one part. It does not mean that more than half of Kenmore dishwashers have a board problem, and the difference between those two sentences is the whole reason this page carries its corpus note. The denominator here is filings, not machines, and a corpus can concentrate because one component genuinely dominates its failures, because one component fails in ways people are more likely to report, or because a single recall episode drew a cluster of filings. This data does not distinguish those.

What the shape does support is an expectation about the next report rather than about the next machine.

Reading the two columns against each other#

Set against each other, the two profiles cross in one place and separate in two. The control board is where they cross: it leads for Kenmore at 53% and sits second for Bosch at 28%, a 25-point gap that still leaves it prominent on both sides. Wiring or the power cord runs the other way — 29% of the Bosch reports name it against 7% of the Kenmore ones, 22 points in Bosch's direction, and it is the only row where the smaller corpus carries the larger share by a wide margin.

The remaining rows are small on both sides but not symmetrically so. The heating element is named in 6% of the Kenmore reports and 1% of the Bosch ones; the motor in 5% against 2%. Neither of those gaps is large in absolute terms, but both rest on more than twenty Kenmore filings, which is a different kind of number from a share built on one or two.

For repair planning the reading is direct. A Kenmore [dishwasher](/blog/repair-or-replace-dishwasher) arriving with no display, no cycle start or erratic control behaviour lands in the part of its corpus that everything else is dwarfed by. A Bosch arriving the same way lands in a corpus where a cord or wiring complaint is just as likely to be the one on record. How often either machine arrives in either state is not something these reports can say.

Bosch vs Kenmore dishwashers: what the reports mention#

Both columns are shares of their own corpus, and the corpora differ in size. Bosch: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Bosch dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=303. Kenmore: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Kenmore dishwashers, 2011-2025, n=461. A difference no larger than one report on either side is marked "within one-report noise".

About the corpus: these are CPSC SaferProducts reports — incidents someone chose to report, not units sold — so the shares on this page are shares of the reports and never a failure rate. The corpus is weighted toward safety events: 12,007 of its 20,581 records (58%) are fire, smoke, burn or melt reports, which over-represents the components that burn and under-represents the ones that merely stop working.

Bosch dishwashers: the reported component split#

Bosch dishwashers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Bosch dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=303.

Shares of reports, not failure rates — see the corpus note above.

Kenmore dishwashers: the reported component split#

Kenmore dishwashers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Kenmore dishwashers, 2011-2025, n=461.

Shares of reports, not failure rates — see the corpus note above.

How to use these numbers#

What this comparison can settle: which components the reported incidents of each brand actually concentrate on, for this appliance. What it cannot settle: which brand fails more often. That would need units sold, and no public source states it. Use the component split to plan for the repair each brand is most reported for, not to rank the two.