Af3260c vs mpc5000

[KenB]

I only had one 3260 in the field, and really can't speak to service issues (I don't work on them).

This one ran low volume, and only modest coverage (a lot of engineering wiring drawings.)

As a color analyst I was called out at least weekly for colors being off - I mean WAY off. A bunch of visits by our lead color guy didn't help much, either.

The customer ultimately switched the 3260 with a 3245C, and all the color issues went away. I never did have to go back after that.

I can say that I have had literally no color complaints on the MPC5000 (or 4000), and we've got a boatload of 'em out there.

[Voltage]

Thing is this customer makes business cards on this 3260 and pushes through 260gram paper. Sometimes even 300grams when I am not looking. They do not make full bleed copy. (no leading or trailing edges) They do however make quite a few full coverage prints and on everything but tioletpaper. If the MPC5000 is having fusing issues with heavy coverage print, i can't see that it will be a suitable replacement.

[daveyball]

Your customer is obviously a "repro" user, and the MPC5000 is not the machine we have an Estate Agent who do the odd full colour run, the machine can't cope with the coverage, weh ahve the 3260's in schools, and full coverager is not an issue

[ash_572]

i have had the full coverage problems on the mpc 2500/3000 and after a refurb on a the fuser unit, it doesnt even last a few months. i tend to change the direction of the paper feed to landscape and this tends to work most of the time.

[daveyt]

I would also take an MPC5000 over a 3260 as well. The image density is far better, although not designed to do the same volume, but the quality is far superior.

[tcs04]

We sell Ricoh and Minolta, I'm sorry to say, but the Minolta C452 and C652 machines (generally) blow the Ricohs out of the water for CQ, Reliability and service time (AF3260)

[Cipher]

Constant runs of full coverage printing is going to cause quality constancy issues and early wear and tear on most MFDs.

I place blame on the salesman, as they will push machines on to customers that clearly are looking for or require production / printing press quality.
And of coarse it doesn't take long for the service calls to start coming in thick and fast for CQ, lines, uneven density, jamming, colour matching etc.
I've had many heated discussions on the subject and it normally comes down to the same bullshit remarks... 'what are we meant to do turn the customer away...' or 'if they don't buy a machine from us they will just go and buy a machine from one of our competitors'.

They just don't care about the bigger picture that it's a time and parts intensive excise to keep these customers up and running.
Plus the engineers get pissed off constantly going back and forth, the customer gets pissed off seeing us working on their machine all the time.

Anyway in this case I also would prefer the MPC5000 over the AF3260, as it's easier to troubleshoot and far easier and quicker to work on.