GE vs LG dishwashers: an incident-report comparison

What this GE vs LG comparison is based on#

Every row on this page moves. There is no component where these two records land in the same place, which is unusual — most brand pairs in this set agree somewhere, generally on the control board.

The evidence is 433 CPSC SaferProducts filings naming a component on a GE [dishwasher](/blog/repair-or-replace-dishwasher) and 47 doing the same for an LG, both between 2011 and 2026. The columns are shares of their own totals. What the size difference means is that one of these columns can be read row by row and the other cannot, and that asymmetry shapes everything below.

Four gaps, in two directions#

The heating element is named in 33% of the GE reports and 2% of the LG ones — 31 points, and the widest here. Wiring or the power cord runs 23 points the other way, 28% for LG against 5% for GE. The control board is 13 points apart at 30% against 17%, and the motor another 13 at 15% against 2%.

Three of those four favour LG's column and one favours GE's, but the direction is less interesting than the fact that nothing here is close. Two dishwasher records that share no emphasis at all is a genuine finding about the reports, whatever produced it.

The asymmetry of confidence#

GE's column is legible top to bottom. Its 33% row is 141 filings, its 17% row is 74, its 5% row is 23, and even its smallest rows are single reports inside a corpus of 433, which is exactly what "rounds to nothing" should mean.

LG's column is not legible that way. Its top three rows are 14, 13 and 7 filings out of 47, which is enough to establish that the board, the wiring and the motor are what LG dishwasher reports are about, and not enough to rank them confidently against each other — one filing is worth about two points there. Its remaining rows are single reports, including the heating element row that produces the page's widest gap.

That last point deserves stating plainly: the 31-point heating-element gap is 141 GE filings against one LG filing. The GE side of it is firm. The LG side of it means only that almost nothing was filed, which is not the same as almost nothing failing.

What the page supports#

Two descriptions and no ranking. GE's reported profile is thermal first, with the board second and everything else marginal. LG's reported profile is electrical and mechanical — board, wiring, motor — with heat essentially unattested in a small record.

Neither description converts into a failure rate. Filings are the denominator throughout, no count of installed machines exists in this database, and the corpus leans toward fire, smoke, burn and melt reports, which raises the profile of components that overheat in every column it contains.

GE vs LG dishwashers: what the reports mention#

Both columns are shares of their own corpus, and the corpora differ in size. GE: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for GE dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=433. LG: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for LG dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=47. 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.

GE dishwashers: the reported component split#

GE dishwashers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for GE dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=433.

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

LG dishwashers: the reported component split#

LG dishwashers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for LG dishwashers, 2011-2026, n=47.

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.