GE vs Maytag refrigerators: an incident-report comparison

What this GE vs Maytag comparison is based on#

Two federal complaint records are counted here: 265 CPSC SaferProducts incident reports naming a component on a GE refrigerator between 2011 and 2026, and 76 doing the same for a Maytag refrigerator across the same years. Every share is a share of its own column, and neither total counts refrigerators sold or in service.

One row matches exactly; one row is the widest on the page#

This pairing produces an unusual pair of results side by side. The ice maker takes 24% of the GE reports and 24% of the Maytag ones — 64 filings out of 265 and eighteen out of 76. The table marks it as no measured difference, and that is not a rounding coincidence hiding a gap; the two records land on the same share from very different totals.

The compressor does the opposite. It takes 2% of the GE record and 25% of the Maytag one, five filings against nineteen. Twenty-three points, the widest separation on this page by a long way.

One component in perfect agreement and one in complete disagreement is a more interesting result than a uniform lean would be, because it rules out the simplest explanation. If Maytag owners simply filed more freely, or if one record resolved into components more often than the other, the ice maker row would lean too. It does not.

What the compressor gap can and cannot carry#

Before that 23-point figure is taken anywhere, convert it. Maytag's 25% is nineteen filings out of a record of 76. GE's 2% is five filings out of 265. Between them, 24 reports.

Nineteen filings out of 76 is a real feature of the Maytag column — it is that record's leading row, marginally ahead of the ice maker, and it would survive a few reclassifications. Five filings out of 265 is not a measurement of anything. The defensible reading is that the compressor is prominent in the Maytag reports and effectively unmentioned in the GE ones, and that the second half of that sentence is a statement about the reports rather than about compressors.

The two records have different shapes#

Maytag's column is led by two components of nearly equal weight: the compressor at 25% and the ice maker at 24%, nineteen and eighteen filings. Those two hold about half its record between them, and the one-point difference between them is a single report — not an ordering.

GE's column is led by one component and then falls away. Its ice maker row is 64 filings; its next three rows are six, five and four. Below its top row there is nothing to rank.

So the pair gives a reader one shared fact and two different structures. Both records point at the ice maker with the same emphasis. Only the Maytag one offers a second component with weight behind it.

The rows where they agree by default#

The remaining comparisons are all small on both sides. The control board is 2 points apart, 2% against 4%, six filings against three. The wiring or power cord is 2 points apart, 2% against 4%, four filings against three. The motor is 2 points apart on two filings each. The condenser matches at 1%, three filings against one.

None of those is a finding. In a 76-report record a single filing is worth more than a percentage point, so a 2-point gap built on three reports is exactly the kind of difference the table's noise marking exists to discourage.

Both tails also carry single-report entries — a drive belt and a heating element on the GE side, a defrost system on the Maytag one — which sit at the edge of the classification rather than in the appliance.

Reading the pair together#

The shared result is the useful one: on either brand, the ice maker is the leading named component, at the same share. The difference is what comes second — a compressor on the Maytag side, and on the GE side a record that does not say. Neither column is a failure rate, because neither counts refrigerators.

GE vs Maytag refrigerators: 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 refrigerators, 2011-2026, n=265. Maytag: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Maytag refrigerators, 2011-2026, n=76. 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 refrigerators: the reported component split#

GE refrigerators — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for GE refrigerators, 2011-2026, n=265.

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

Maytag refrigerators: the reported component split#

Maytag refrigerators — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Maytag refrigerators, 2011-2026, n=76.

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.