Frequently Asked Questions

Three colours in one box — how does buying them together change the maths?

Bought as singles, the GPR-36C, GPR-36M and GPR-36Y cost $71.06 each — $213.18 for the three. This set is $176.21, which saves $36.97 and brings the per-cartridge price down to about $58.74. The cartridges themselves are identical to the singles, each rated at up to 19,000 pages; the saving is purely in buying the colour side of the GPR-36 family in one order instead of three.

Our black still has life in it — is a colours-only refresh a sensible halfway step?

It is often the right step. In this family the GPR-36BK black is rated at 19,000 pages, same as the colours, but black and colour rarely empty together — text work drains black, presentation work drains colour. If the black test patch is still solid and only the colour balance has drifted, refreshing the three colours and leaving the black alone spends money only where the wear actually is.

How far does one colour set take a department that copies in colour every day?

Each cartridge in the set is rated at up to 19,000 pages, so the box represents a full colour cycle for the machine — 19,000 pages' worth of cyan, magenta and yellow capacity. How long that lasts depends on the department's colour volume: a room turning out colour daily will move through a cycle in a season-sized span, a mostly-monochrome room may take a year. The honest measure is your own meter history, not the rating.

Do the three cartridges have to go in together, or can each wait for its own warning?

Each can wait. A set is a buying unit, not an installation instruction. Install the colour that has actually run down, keep the other two sealed in the box, and bring them out as their slots call for them. Kept sealed, flat and away from heat, the waiting cartridges lose nothing by sitting in the cupboard for a few months.

What happens to colour balance if we refresh the colours while the black is old?

Fresh colours against a tired black can look slightly heavy — colour comes back at full strength while black text is still a touch grey. If the black is genuinely near its end, the mismatch shows mostly in dense black areas and composite greys. It is cosmetic rather than harmful, and it resolves the day the black is changed; if the black patch test is already weak, changing all four together is the cleaner job.

What warranty and returns cover this set, and how fast does it ship?

All three cartridges carry our 1-year warranty and 1-year free returns, each cartridge covered on its own merits. The set ships from the closest of our four US warehouses — Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia or California — and full terms are on our shipping and returns page. Support is available Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM CST.

About This Set

This is the GPR-36 3-colour set: one each of the compatible GPR-36C cyan, GPR-36M magenta and GPR-36Y yellow cartridges, each rated at up to 19,000 pages, with the GPR-36BK black sold separately for the many sites whose black runs on its own timetable. It suits imageRUNNER production and copy-room machines whose colour side needs a full refresh while the black still has work in it. The set is covered by our 1-year warranty and 1-year free returns and ships from one of our four US warehouses in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia or California. The full GPR-36 family is on the Canon toner page.

This 3-cartridge set is built for the ImageRunner C2020, ImageRunner Advance C2020, ImageRunner Advance C2030, and ImageRunner Advance C2225. The same family also offers the yellow cartridge (GPR-36Y), the magenta cartridge (GPR-36M), the cyan cartridge (GPR-36C), and the GPR-36 6-cartridge set.