Welcome to the community.
Sadly, your experience is all too common. It’s frustrating, but in a way, Bambu has done you a favor by pushing you toward Amazon, where you’ll find better quality filament, far superior customer service, and, in many cases, prices 60% lower.
The real key is mastering filament calibration. Once you do, all filaments perform the same—don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
Bambu Lab’s filament sales service is a complete disaster. A quick scan through this forum reveals countless complaints about their supply chain failures and blatant disregard for basic quality control. One user here bought bulk white Bambu PLA—the most generic filament on the planet—only to discover mid-print that a new spool from the exact same shipment had a different shade of white. That’s the level of inconsistency we’re dealing with.
I had the same experience when I got my P1P two years ago. Back then, the P1S didn’t exist, so printing your own skins was the only option. No big deal—I figured it would be a great way to learn the printer. But that’s when everything started falling apart. Bambu was constantly out of the most basic filaments—white, black, red, gray PLA. Seriously? How does a company pushing a proprietary AMS system fail to keep its own filament in stock? But as I said, they actually did me a favor because out of an abundance of caution, I likely would have stuck with a single ecosystem supplier. However, Bambu forced me out of their proverbial nest and ever since then, I’ve been enjoying great results at a fraction of the price.
Here’s an Amazon tip. I have found that 1 out of 10 filaments I try simply don’t calibrate well. I have returned filaments with over 250g used after unsuccessful calibration results for a full refund at Amazon’s expense, no questions asked. Oh yeah, and the money was back in my account the moment the bar code was scanned at the shipper. Can Bambu offer that? You’ll be lucky if they answer a shipment inquiry within 3 weeks.
Their filament sales operation isn’t just bad—it’s a complete joke.
FYI: Some time back I did a bake-off between different filaments I acquired from Amazon. You may find this post of interest and help you understand how to see past the outer carton and figure out who is the OEM behind the plastic.