SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20150827-09292-2147428929. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Maytag MDBH979SAM1 (MDBH979SAM1 maytag dishwasher manufactured by Whirlpool and many like models with a common design.). Incident: The Maytag dishwasher (mine is MDBH979SAM1) manufactured by Whirlpool has a design flaw. The same design was used in multiple models from 2010 to 2015. Generally the only effect is that the dishwasher stops working but sometimes the flexible circuit which connects the external control panel (with the buttons) and the internal control panel (the brains) in the door corrodes in a way that it heats up and in some cases causes fires). This defect exists in 10's of thousands if not 100's of thousands of units. Whirlpool is aware (phone 1-866-931-7384) and has redesigned the part but will not acknowledge the flaw (due to the cost exposure). So many of these parts are defective that the part is on national backorder for many/most models. The important point is that this not only causes the dishwasher to malfunction but can cause a fire.