Bosch vs Maytag dishwashers: an incident-report comparison

What this Bosch vs Maytag comparison is based on#

Two corpora, both drawn from CPSC SaferProducts filings between 2011 and 2026: 303 reports naming a component on a Bosch [dishwasher](/blog/repair-or-replace-dishwasher), 228 doing the same for a Maytag. The counts are close enough that neither column is reading through a much thinner lens than the other, which makes the difference in their shape the more interesting thing on the page.

Two peaks against three#

Bosch's reports arrive in two places and then stop. Wiring or the power cord takes 29%, the control board takes 28%, and the third-largest row in that column is the motor at 2%. There is no middle to that distribution: two rows hold well over half of it and the rest is a tail of single filings.

Maytag's corpus has a middle. The control board leads at 25%, the heating element is close behind at 23%, and wiring or the power cord holds a substantial 13% — three components rather than two, and the drop after them is gentler than Bosch's. Read as a repair expectation, that is a corpus with three plausible first suspects instead of two.

Where the columns actually differ#

The heating element is the widest gap, 22 points: 23% of the Maytag reports name it against 1% of the Bosch reports. That is a difference in kind rather than in degree, since on the Bosch side the row is two filings out of 303 while on the Maytag side it is 52 out of 228.

Wiring or the power cord runs the other way by 16 points, 29% against 13%, though here both columns have real evidence behind them — 87 Bosch filings and 29 Maytag ones — so it is a difference in emphasis rather than in presence. The control board is the closest of the three, 28% against 25%, a 3-point gap that leaves it near the top of both columns.

What is left below the top three#

Under those rows the two corpora look alike, and neither has much there. The motor is named in 2% of the Bosch reports and 3% of the Maytag ones. The water valve or line is named in 1% of each, which the table records as no measured difference. Maytag's thermostat or sensor row sits at 1%, three filings; Bosch's drain pump or hose and ice maker rows sit at 0%, one filing each.

The one asymmetry worth naming in that tail is what each column keeps at the bottom. Bosch's smallest rows are components that appear once in 303 filings — a drain pump or hose, an ice maker — while Maytag's smallest are components that appear three times in 228. Neither set of rows carries enough evidence to compare, and both are listed rather than dropped so that the shape of the column can be seen whole. A table that showed only its top three rows would look far more decisive than the underlying reports actually are.

None of it changes the reading, which is about shape rather than rank. A Maytag dishwasher that has stopped heating lands in the second-largest region of its own corpus, where a Bosch in the same state lands in a row that has almost no filings behind it. Neither statement is a claim about how often either machine reaches that state — that would need units in service, and this database does not carry them.

Bosch vs Maytag 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. Maytag: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Maytag dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=228. 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.

Maytag dishwashers: the reported component split#

Maytag dishwashers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Maytag dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=228.

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.