Ricoh 651 / 751 experience

Agreed

I agree - I would prefer Ricoh step up, before this gets out of hand to a larger audience. They will really tarnish their reputation in the industry with this machine as it stands. I am locally up against KonicaMinolta 7000 series - it is more cost effective to run and they are experience great luck with service and reliability. We clearly purchased the wrong machine and technology. Ricoh's attempt to make it into the production color market is a failure with the 651/751 and they best rectify the situation, before they are known as the industry's lemon and underdog. As far as the machines that are out there, they need to get a fix ASAP and credit those printers in good faith. When I make a deal with a customer, I stand by it 150% and will only do business with others that do the same. As far as I am concerned, I will do what I can to let other know how poorly this equipment performs and the losses we have experienced - that is until Ricoh fixes the problem. After it is fixed, I will have no problem with telling everyone how diligent they were in getting the issues fixed. As of now, I can't say that they even care - they got their money and are continuing to sell a unit that is knowingly not up to par. Very bad business model. If we all ran our shops with this model we would be out of business. Luckily for Ricoh, they have a decent reputation in the black and white market to carry them.

 

I am all for the class action. We have a 651 and from day one we have a halo effect which is where you have type over a screen you get a white outline around the letters. They have tried for 5 months to fix it and brought people from NY and the last one came from the Midwest. When it first happened I told my salesman that if you can't fix the problem I don't want the machine. He said don't worry, if we can't fix it they would take it back. So when the specialist couldn't fix the problem he said that it prints within specs, and that was that. My sales person said he would let me know when they would pick it up so I went with Xerox, and again this is after they said they were going to pick it up. Now after signing a contract with Xerox I am stuck with 2 machines. Ricoh just walked away and this is after the disassembled their copier. My old Xerox 240 can print the same job with not halo. I have been a customer of Ricoh for over 10 years and this is the thanks I get. I am all for a group effort, it is the best way to take on Ricoh like Two 32 said we are stronger in numbers. What is anyone's thought's.

 

How is everyones issues gonig on this machine. Has there been any resolution to the problems?

 

Ricoh has had a laison from corporate in Japan here to try to address some of the issues along with our tech and one of their top tech/engineers form the North East region. They have been trying a variety of fixes, however they have been so far temporary. The last fix was a replacement of the laser mirrors from japan with an improved bracket system to help with vibration. It was a full day job for three guys. The results imporoved very slightly, however it isn't to par. Color Registration and a multitude of functional errors are still happening daily.

 

Ricoh has done nothing to solve the problem. They just left us high and dry. They didn't offer another machine knowing that it will do the same thing. Now I have a Xerox 770 which can produce everything we throw at it, and a Ricoh Pro 651EX that has short comings which we had taken offline and fighting with U S Bank which Ricoh sold the contract to and U S Bank's position is they don't care if the machine works or not they just want to get paid. Now I have to gamble in court that the Judge can see the quality issue, and if things don't go well for us in court we have to pay Ricoh Attorney's fees, and all long the Salesman kept saying we will take care of it or take it back. I have learned one thing from this, if you buy a machine from anyone make sure they carry their own paperwork, this way they have to stand accountable for their produce. As it is now the bank doesn't care and Ricoh go paid from the bank so they could care less about a customer, and this is with me being a customer of Ricoh for over 12 years.

 

I have seen a bunch of samples from this machine. I must say for a light duty production machine I am pretty impressed. The image quality on graphics is so detailed. I also have heard very good things as far as minimal issues with paper feeding. I think Ricoh is on the right track with this offering.

 

Copyguy, we own one...try again. You need to read all of the complaints above that ALL of us are experiencing the same issue. Copy quality is great off the showroom floor, no question about it, but wait until you get 40,000 clicks on it. It falls apart and they havne't been able to achieve anything even close to the way way the machine was shipped. We are going on almost a year of ownership and if we could send it back, we would. Just yesterday I tried to feed 11x17 plain 60# offset from the high capacity trays and fought with it on a job that was only 100 pieces. It took me 2.5 hours to get the job done for the customer. JAM AFTER JAM. The rubber was just changed two days prior and I cleaned all of the wheels just to make sure. Our KM500, 3 generations ago and 9 years, ran circles around this unit. The Fiery is also a major issue with alignment. It will not move from the MAC and when you do move it you lose your image from the PC. We have complained about this issue from day one and they haven't done a thing about it. Very disappointed in Ricoh release of a machine that wasn't tested.

 

We've also got a Pro 651 EX that is having a recurring banding (lighter streaks that run perpendicular to the feed direction) issue (among other smaller things) that is baffling our Ricoh tech -- it seems that he has all but given up on it at this point. It's pretty light, but noticeable to the point where the customer will not accept it. Does this sound familiar to anyone here? Thanks.

 

WOW- I am just about to sign up for one of these. The print quality and registration on the show floor is great, better than the KM we are comparing it to. Are you using a dealer for service, or Ricoh themselves?? How many clicks before issues started? Thanks!!

 

Before you even think of signing with Ricoh which I will never do business with them again. Here is what happened to me. We got our 651 the end of March of this year. The 2nd job we put on it was a newsletter, and there was a scree on it with type over the screen. When it printed there was a faint white outline around all the type which is not what was not in the file. We spent 5 months with all of Ricoh techs, supervisors and finally a specialist. During this time while they were trying to solve the problem we our Ricoh sales rep that we weren't going to pay our lease payments until they could fix or resolve our problem. 4 months into the contract which they were still trying to fix our problem, and they all acknowledged the problem we get a call from U S Bank wanting to get paid. I explained to them what was going on. U S Bank said that they don't cover the machine and they didn't care if it worked or not they just wanted to get paid. Going back to Ricoh we said just take the 651 back which we told them from the beginning. Ricoh came back with our machine prints within specs even though they admitted there is a problem and they would not take back or offer us another copier, which from what the tech say is a flaw with the copier. ( I can send you a file that we used ). Now our old Xerox printed the job fine and I showed this to Ricoh, and they had nothing to say. We are now stuck with a machine that we have very little use for due to the type of work we put on it. Our Attorney says it's going to be a up hill battle and if for some reason we lose I have to pay their attorney fees which could cost more than the equipment is worth. I have been with Ricoh for over 12 years and you think they would want to keep their customers happy. We had a small problem with a Xerox 700 a few years ago, and Xerox had no problem taking it back. I found this board after I was so pissed off at Ricoh and just typed in 651 problems and it led me here. As you can see there a lot of problems with Ricoh, and since they won't stand behind what they sell all I can do at this point is let people like you what to expect if you have a problem, and what the outcome down the road is. We were expecting Ricoh to take back their machine, they kept telling us if we can't fix it they would take it back. Well they didn't, and whitle we were waiting for them to pick it up Xerox came in and gave us a 770 to test drive for 30 days. At the end of the test drive we signed. and 3 days after we signed with Xerox is when Ricoh told us they weren't going to pick up their 651. Now I have to machines one print fine to Ricoh we have just sitting, because of the flaw. If you send me a email I will be happy to go into more detail.

 

If anyone is interested I have a sample file which I can send with an explanation. I have tested this on our Ricoh Pro 6561EX, our Xerox 770, and a Km. The Konica & Xerox both print with no issues, but not the Ricoh.

 

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/banding.jpg/

Here is a URL to our banding issue on our C751 Does anyone have any solutions to this? It has been a year with this issue and no answers, so if I can solve this it would be great. Thoughts?

 

Yes get something other than Ricoh. We still have our issue with the so called halo, which looks like a trapping issue but it's in the print engine. The service manager for Ricoh said that when he tried to print the file on his machine it failed as well. Did they lead you to believe that they were sending someone from Japan to fix your banding. They told us that then changed their mind and said no one is coming out. Great customer service. Ricoh has equipment that fails and hides behind the prints within specs. Classy if I were you and it's been that long I would fight in court, we are getting eveything together to do the same. Maybe we can team up and fight together, Class action. My brother-in-law who used to be an engineer for HP and now it their International Patten attorney calls a maniacal breach. Yours is a lot easier to see that what we have. My customer has the same machine we do and they have the same problem. When I pointed it out to them then they could see it, They said we have the trained eye and that's how Ricoh is getting away with what they sell. Anyway if there is anything I can do to help please let me know.

 

Did you have test prints run before leasing the machine? If so I would point to the disparity between what you're able to do on the leased machine and the sample prints run before leasing. This might not be very helpful to you now, but I always get a number of sample prints provided of the exact work I'll be running on the machine before leasing anything.

 

Yes we did, but they were more on the coverage tones. This is something that Ricoh knew about before we leased the machine. They were the ones that came up with the phrase halo. One of my customers has the same machine and when I saw it printed it the same way, they said "I thought that's just how it prints". They said when I pointed it out the we have the trained eye. We pride ourselves on quality and now they can see the flaw and aren't happy with what comes out, and asked to start printing their color on our Xerox, because it or the KM can print the file with no problem. You can't test print every job you have and when looking at equipment you want to give it the hardest jobs to try. Printing type over a screen is not something I would consider a hard job. It looks like a trapping issue but it's not. They have now spent 8 months and still no solution. Our first newsletter which was the 2nd week we had the machine is when we noticed it and I said to our sales person, what are we going to do about this problem, he said if we can't fix it we will take it back. Well that didn't happen so all I can do since Ricoh refuses to tell people the short comings of this machine, is to make them aware of it. If you would like I can send you a sample file and printout. We printed it on our Xerox and Ricoh and I can show you the difference. I can only hope that Ricoh will admit they can't fix it and pick it up.

 

Hello!

We are stationed in Munich, Germany, have a monthly performance of 30.000 SRA3 b/w and 20.000 SRA3 color, and are planning to buy a new digital printing machine in January and have to decide between the Konica Minolta C6000 press and the Ricoh C651EX.
Maybe some of you could help us to make that decison especially reffering to the problems Ricoh was/is experiencing as mentioned in the messages above.

We have already made some tests on an older KM C6501, a colleague of us is using and were very convinced of the quality. We compared the printings with a Xerox X700 and the KM was even a little better in printing pages with a high density of color on thick paper (300g/m²).
The Showroom performance of the KM C6000 press was also very good.

Concerning Ricoh, we are having a demonstration in january.
Does the C651 still have that huge problems with banding, etc.?

Thank you for your help and best wishes for christmas season!

 

The biggest problem is the trapping, which is something Ricoh can't fix, and won't stand behind. I will be more than happy to sell you mine at a discount, unfortunately I know this won't work. I can send you a file that you can run, the same file that Ricoh has and according to the tech and head of service on the west coast tried to print and in their own words it failed. If quality isn't an issue it's an okay machine, but for the price why settle for less. I would go with the Xerox 770 we use that over the 651 we are stuck with at this point

 

Just wondering if Ricoh ever fixed your banding/ trapping issues?

Thanks!

 

No they were supposed to be out 2 weeks ago and nothing. It's okay so I can show the court that they aren't standing behind what they sell. When one of the Tech saw a correspondence where I was contacting a lawyer who wanted to do a class action, the next day the West coast Service manager called to say he was sending out someone from Japan, called a week later to say he would let me know when the person from Japan was coming. A week after that Ricoh called back to say that the person from Japan was not coming, but they were sending a couple of tech out and that was the last I heard. It seems that when you mention law suit Ricoh seems to jump but as long as they keep stringing you along with empty promises of someone coming out you will forget about the problem, well I didn't and this just adds to the case. Ricoh has done this to many according to what I have read on this and other sites. They don't stand behind what they sell.

 

How about uploading a small crop of a scan here showing the halo problem so everyone can see what you're talking about.