Phaser 8550 DP inconsistant blurry prints

[JohnM-Xerox]

Hello MarkGHC,

The following is one of the problems that exhibits the symptoms you mentioned.  I know that you said you ran through the print quality troubleshooting solutions, but I just want to be sure that you came across this one below.

Solution : Clean Ink Smears
1.Press the [Up] or [Down] arrow button on the Control Panel to select [Troubleshooting] on the Display Screen, and then press the [OK] button.
2.Press the [Up] or [Down] arrow button to select [Print Quality Problems], and then press the [OK] button.
3.Press the [Up] or [Down] arrow button to select [Remove Print Smears], and then press the [OK] button. The printer will clean the ink from the rollers by running several sheets of paper through the printer.
4.If the smears are still displayed, repeat steps 1 through 3 up to three more times.

NOTE: If the problem continues, make sure you are using a supported paper type.

[MarkGHC]

We have a Phaser 8550 DP-2 printer with fewer than 30,000 prints. The prints look as if some of the dots have been shifted down. It affects all colors. It almost looks blurry but you can see the individual dots that are shifted down and they appear sharp. About every 8 pages I will get a clean print. This happens with: Xerox paper, clean power, after cleaning plastic blades, and running through print quality troubleshooting solutions from printer.