Poor Print Colours on a Canon

[Keytapper]

Hi
I have a Canon i550x printer which until a few weeks ago printed perfectly. Now when I print out anything the colours are very pale. The black is ok. I have run the clean nozzles and  deep clean set-ups. Checked all sorts of adjustments. Installed new inks but whatever I do I cannot get the colours to print correctly. Tried different paper settings, but all to no avail. Is there a life span to these machines as I cannot see any mention of this fault in the Help Menu or Print Trouble Shooter.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

So you have changed the color cartridges?
What about the black ink cartridges? How do you know they're ok?

In my experience, bad color quality was the result of low blank ink, so you might want to look into that.

Also, can you make sure you're not printing Drafts. (Usually in Print setup)

[ale52]

If I'm not mistaken, sometimes when the black is low, like Carbon said, the printer will draw from and combine colors to make black.

Alan <>< 

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

You pop up at the strangest times, Alan.

[ale52]

My wife just left for work and my office is in the garage.  Before I have to climb the stairs I usually take a whack at the forums. 

Alan <>< 

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Heh, all right.

[ale52]

There is a method to the madness 

Alan <>< 

[Keytapper]

Have checked. The black is almost half full.
I have just printed a test sheet in 3 colours without black of the letter A, in 72 point, Bold 'Arial Black' and they have come out 'faded'. There appears to be horrizontal missed lines across the whole page of letters especially the Blue. As I said before I gave the nozzles both a Clean and Deep Clean.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

How exactly did you clean them?

Can you make sure you're not printing drafts.

If you have any spare black ink cartridges, I would try them out and see if there is any difference.

[Broni]

Installed new inks

Including black?
I believe, printers even when printing color, use some black as a background.
I know, you said, black is half-full, but it may be just faulty.

[Keytapper]

Have been reading a very long thread about the problems I have described. Google <"i550 error flash">
Done a lot of cleaning and got ink flowing but could not print proper patterns to enable me to set the head setting values. Have now scrapped the lot and got a new Canon Pixma MP 520. £100 plus at Amazon: £58.71 at Argos. Luck as has it, it uses the same inks as my other Pixma i4300 so can share the inks as I always buy a stock in as I had problems years ago not being able to get the inks for a 'deleted' printer.
Thanks anyway for your replies. You might find the site I mentioned above useful if you have a i550 and you have a few hours spare to read it. Thanks, Keytapper.