Kenmore vs Maytag washers: an incident-report comparison

What this Kenmore vs Maytag comparison is based on#

The two corpora on this page stand in an exact two-to-one ratio: 208 CPSC SaferProducts incident reports name a Kenmore washer and 104 name a Maytag one, all filed between 2011 and 2026. That tidy relationship makes the arithmetic unusually easy to check — any Maytag row with half as many filings as its Kenmore counterpart lands on the same percentage.

Everything else about the source is unchanged. These are complaints somebody submitted rather than machines somebody inspected, and the CPSC publishes no count of washers sold or in service, so no share here can become a failure rate.

Four rows show no measured difference at all#

The motor is at 4% in both columns — 8 Kenmore filings against 4 Maytag ones, exactly the two-to-one split the denominators predict. The wiring or power cord does the same thing: 4% and 4%, on 9 filings against 4. The thermostat or sensor is at 1% in both, on 3 against 1. The water valve or line is at 1% in both, on 2 against 1.

Four ties in a table of eight rows is a lot, and three of them arrive by the same route: half the documents divided by half the corpus. When that pattern repeats, the honest description is that the two records are proportioned alike rather than that one brand is doing better than the other.

The control board very nearly joins them#

The control board is named in 9% of the Kenmore reports and 8% of the Maytag ones — 18 filings against 8, a single point apart, and the table marks it as within one-report noise. It is the top entry in both records and the largest group of documents on either side.

So the leaders agree, and half the remaining rows are ties. What is left is two components that genuinely part company.

The lint path leans Kenmore#

The lint trap or vent is at 7% of the Kenmore reports against 3% of the Maytag ones, a 4-point gap standing on 14 filings against 3. It is the widest row on the page, and it holds up in either reading: Kenmore has both the larger share and nearly five times the documents, in a corpus only twice the size.

That makes it the one finding here worth carrying away. In the Kenmore record the lint trap or vent is second only to the control board; in the Maytag record it is tied for fifth.

The drain pump leans Maytag#

Running the other way, the drain pump or hose is at 3% of the Maytag reports against 0% of the Kenmore ones — 3 filings against 1. The Kenmore share rounds down; the filing exists.

Four documents in total is thin, and the row deserves the modest weight that implies. It is worth listing because it is the only component on the page where the Maytag record leads by more than a point, and because the heating element behaves similarly at 4% against 2%, on 4 Maytag filings against 5 Kenmore ones — a row where the counts do not actually support the direction of the shares.

Two lists of nearly the same shape#

Nine components appear on the Kenmore side and eight on the Maytag side, and the overlap is close to total. Kenmore names a drive belt twice, which Maytag does not name; Maytag names a drain pump or hose three times, which Kenmore names once.

Both records descend gently from a control board in the high single digits, and neither has a component that dominates it. These are two flat, similarly proportioned sets of complaints, and the table's four no-difference markings are the clearest statement of that.

The practical read#

For a washer of either brand the reported incidents point first at the control board, at 9% or 8% depending on the column. After that the shortlists differ in one place: Kenmore's adds the lint trap or vent on 14 filings, and Maytag's spreads across the heating element, motor and wiring or power cord at 4% each, with the drain pump or hose behind them on 3.

None of that ranks the brands, and the exact two-to-one relationship between the corpora is a property of this database rather than of the machines described in it.

Kenmore vs Maytag washers: what the reports mention#

Both columns are shares of their own corpus, and the corpora differ in size. Kenmore: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Kenmore washers, 2011-2026, n=208. Maytag: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Maytag washers, 2011-2026, n=104. 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.

Kenmore washers: the reported component split#

Kenmore washers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Kenmore washers, 2011-2026, n=208.

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

Maytag washers: the reported component split#

Maytag washers — every share in this table is a share of: CPSC SaferProducts incident reports for Maytag washers, 2011-2026, n=104.

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.