Frigidaire vs LG washers: an incident-report comparison

What this Frigidaire vs LG comparison is based on#

There is a useful inversion buried in this pair. The widest gap in the table is built on almost no documents, and the row where the two brands agree exactly is built on the most. Both observations come from the same two sets of CPSC SaferProducts incident reports: 46 filed against Frigidaire washers between 2011 and 2023, and 295 filed against LG washers between 2011 and 2026.

As everywhere in this class, these are submissions rather than surveys. Someone decided to write each one; nobody writes one about a machine that is behaving; and the database publishes no count of washers sold or running, so nothing here can be turned into a rate.

The biggest difference has the least behind it#

Two rows tie for the widest gap at 4 percentage points. One is the control board — 9% of the Frigidaire reports against 5% of the LG ones, which is 4 filings against 14. The other is the heating element: 4% against 0%, and underneath it, 2 Frigidaire filings against 1 LG filing.

Three documents in total generate that second gap. The LG share rounds down because it is one report in 295; the Frigidaire share reads as 4% because it is two reports in 46. Nothing about the row is wrong, and nothing about it is informative — it is what the arithmetic does when a tiny numerator meets two very different denominators.

The rows that show no difference have the most behind them#

The motor is named in 4% of the Frigidaire reports and 4% of the LG ones. The water valve or line is at 2% in both. The table marks both rows as showing no measured difference, and both are supported by far more paperwork than the gaps above them: 2 Frigidaire filings against 13 LG ones for the motor, 1 against 5 for the water valve.

So the two most solidly evidenced rows on the page are the two that separate nothing, and the two widest rows are among the thinnest. A comparison table sorted by size of difference is, in a case like this, close to a comparison table sorted by weakness of evidence — which is exactly why every share here is printed with its report count beside it.

The LG list is longer and lower#

Eleven components appear in the LG column against seven in the Frigidaire one, and the LG column tops out at 5%. Below the control board it runs the motor at 4%, then the wiring or power cord, the igniter and the lint trap or vent at 3% each, the water valve or line at 2% and the drain pump or hose at 1%, before finishing with four components that each round to 0% on one filing apiece.

The igniter is the only component named on one side and not the other with real weight behind it — 8 LG reports, and no Frigidaire entry at all. That is a fact about how these particular incidents were classified rather than a claim about hardware, but at 8 documents it is not a rounding artifact either.

What the pair supports#

Both records put the control board first, and that is the practical shortlist for either brand. After it, the LG record offers a flat spread with no strong second suspect, and the Frigidaire record offers three components tied at 4% — each of them two reports.

The Frigidaire window also closes in 2023, three years earlier than the LG one, so the newest part of the comparison exists on one side only. None of this ranks the two brands; it describes which parts the filed complaints name, for two piles of complaints of very unequal size.

Frigidaire vs LG washers: what the reports mention#

Both columns are shares of their own corpus, and the corpora differ in size. Frigidaire: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Frigidaire washers, 2011-2023, n=46. LG: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for LG washers, 2011-2026, n=295. 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.

Frigidaire washers: the reported component split#

Frigidaire washers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Frigidaire washers, 2011-2023, n=46.

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

LG washers: the reported component split#

LG washers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for LG washers, 2011-2026, n=295.

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.