Frigidaire vs Whirlpool dishwashers: an incident-report comparison

What this Frigidaire vs Whirlpool comparison is based on#

Of the brand pairs in this set, this one has the closest thing to matched evidence. Frigidaire contributes 103 CPSC SaferProducts incident reports filed between 2011 and 2026; Whirlpool contributes 137 over exactly the same window. Neither column is reading through a noticeably thinner lens than the other, and neither stops earlier than the other.

That matters because the two records disagree almost completely, and matched corpus sizes remove the easiest explanation for it. Whatever produced the difference, it is not that one side simply has more reports to distribute.

The disagreement, stated plainly#

Whirlpool's record is a board record. The control board is named in 49% of its filings — 67 reports — and nothing else in that column reaches double figures as a share. Frigidaire's record is a heat record: the heating element takes 45% of its filings, 46 reports, and the control board follows at 19%.

Read across, the control board differs by 30 points in Whirlpool's favour and the heating element by 36 points in Frigidaire's. Each brand's leading row is the other's secondary or minor one. There is no third row large enough to soften that, and no row anywhere in the table where the two columns share an emphasis.

What matched sizes do and do not license#

With 103 and 137 filings behind them, both leading rows are firmly evidenced, and the inversion between them is not an artefact of one column being sparse. That is the strongest statement this page can make.

It is still not a statement about the machines. Reports arrive because someone chose to file, and filing behaviour responds to how alarming a failure is, whether a recall was in the news, and how many units are in service — none of which the database records. Two records can be equally well populated and equally uninformative about rates, and these are.

What each record leaves unexplained#

There is one more thing matched sizes make visible. Whirlpool's column concentrates almost half its filings on a single part, and Frigidaire's concentrates a similar share on a different one, yet neither column carries any second component of comparable weight. In both cases the second-largest row is well under half the size of the leader. Two records built from the same database, over the same eleven years, with the same counting rule, have each ended up with one dominant subject and a long quiet tail.

That symmetry is worth noticing because it argues against reading either column as a full picture of what goes wrong with the machine. A database weighted toward fire, smoke, burn and melt reports will always foreground the parts that can do those things, and the parts that merely stop working will be under-represented in both columns by the same mechanism.

The rows underneath, and the honest limit#

Below the leaders both columns run thin. Wiring or the power cord is 8% for Whirlpool against 4% for Frigidaire. The motor is 4% against 1%. The drain pump or hose is 1% against 2%, and the thermostat or sensor is 1% in both, which the table marks as no measured difference. On the Frigidaire side several of those rows are one or two filings, so their apparent precision overstates what is behind them.

The practical reading is the pair of leaders. A Whirlpool [dishwasher](/blog/repair-or-replace-dishwasher) that will not start a cycle, has lost its display or behaves erratically at the panel falls inside the largest region of its own record. A Frigidaire that will not heat falls inside the largest region of its. How often either machine reaches those states is not derivable here, and no number of additional filings would make it derivable without a count of machines.

Frigidaire vs Whirlpool dishwashers: 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 dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=103. Whirlpool: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Whirlpool dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=137. 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 dishwashers: the reported component split#

Frigidaire dishwashers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Frigidaire dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=103.

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

Whirlpool dishwashers: the reported component split#

Whirlpool dishwashers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Whirlpool dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=137.

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.