iR C3170 blurry and faded colors

[Canon.Tech]

I work on this model a lot sadly!

If you don’t have a finisher on your machine, remove the top cover (2 screws) & run a full auto gradation, look on the transfer belt & see if the colours are formed clearly, if they are then you have a transfer issue, it won’t be that all 3 of your colour devs have failed at the same time, in any case then can be rescued by performing toner supply/stir inservice mode.

On this machine the most likely cause is either the drum is shot or simply the patch sensor is dirty.
Simply start by cleaning the patch sensor, then turn the machine off for about 30 mins & power it back on, it will then perform autogradation, then try some test prints I would bet that improves the colour quality.

[segfault]

Fitted a new drum, no change at all. I think I'm done with this piece of junk! Thanks for all of the responses.

[northernlife]

make sure you clean the patch sensor. But yes. This is the only Canon we have EVER had to go back to the customer 3 months and 11 calls later and go "Ok listen we effed up. This machine is a pile of crap and we're offering to buy it back and you can purchase a 2880" This particular customer still has the 2880 with nothing out of the ordinary. You can buy used 2880/3080/3380's for 800 bucks fully loaded btw. I highly suggest you do so.

[Canon.Tech]

After replacing the drum did you clean the patch sensor & then do an auto gradation?Yes this is an awful machine but I still have dozens of these out I keep them maintained OK without any major issues.

[segfault]

I cleaned the patch sensor before I ordered the new drum. I'm leery of buying anything used, at this point, since I know what a heap our "used" 3170 will be. I hope it goes straight to the recycler!

How is the ImageRUNNER Advance C2230 (or should I create a separate topic for that)? Should we look at any other brands? We would be doing between 30,000-70,000 copies per year, probably 5% of them in color. We would want the basic finisher/stapler and plan to keep the unit for over 5 years.

[segfault]

After replacing the drum did you clean the patch sensor & then do an auto gradation?Yes this is an awful machine but I still have dozens of these out I keep them maintained OK without any major issues.

Yes, thanks for following up. The colors wouldn't print correctly and it wouldn't recognize the test page because of that. Same problem I had with the old drum unit.

[Canon.Tech]

Where are you located?
Now that you have bought a new drum why don’t you pay a trained tech to fix it for you, my bet is he’d have It up & running in under 30 mins so not going to cost you much.

[segfault]

We're in the States, in the middle of nowhere. Our copier service people do not stock any parts for this model anymore and this is why we quit using them and I started replacing the drum/cleaning blades/fuser as needed. They would make one service call, determine that X part needed to be replaced, order it, and then make a second service call, charging us for two service calls, and that's if they fixed it correctly the first time.