HP 8150 image quality - light with banding

[Froady]

Greetings printer experts, my HP 8150 has started gradually printing lighter toward one edge with some banding.
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~favou/DSCF6697.jpg
Toner cartridge says 39% and have shaken it with no change.
My research so far points to "change toner cartridge" and "install maintenance kit" but I am skeptical and poor. Do any of you recognize the particular effect?

[cs_steve]

Try reseating the transfer roller, blowing it off with canned air...
http://www.printertechs.com/tech/mkinst/mk-5si8000-3trans-roll.php

If that doesn't help, it should be the toner cartridge ... You can do a halfway test to confirm that it's not the fuser:
http://www.printertechs.com/tech/print-defects/halfwaytest.php

Toner cartridge is C4182X
http://printertechsdotcom.stores.yahoo.net/c4hp81cotoca.html

[Froady]

Thanks for the suggestions. Reseating the transfer roller made no difference and the halfway test showed that the problem is pre fuser. If anyone has seen this exact imaging fault I would be very interested to confirm the cause.

[cs_steve]

We have seen this exact print defect, but this exact defect can be caused by SEVERAL different items :-)

No one will be able to tell you for sure in your case what the issue is, but I can tell you 95 times out of 100 that type of print defect would be caused by a toner issue ...

since it is pre-fuser, it could still be any of the following: faulty laser scanner, faulty transfer roller, faulty toner cartridge ... the only way to know for sure is to swap parts, advisably in order of most likely to least likely...

The smartest purchase is a toner, since it's the most common part to fail and even if it's not the problem part, eventually you will need another toner so at worst you'll end up with a spare ...

[Froady]

Good advice. I changed the toner and it's all good. (I am in NZ so could not buy from you) The new toner had a new defect with white lines so I had to clean the drum on that but it came good - your toner would not have done that!
Thank you, you have been very helpful.