Problems with the black ink cartridge. Freshly refilled with black ink and the prints are coming out light grey and inconsistent. The machine itself keeps reporting a problem with the black cartridge.

You have to refill both.

if you put a refill cartridge the printer are printing in grey.Try to put original cartridge canon.

Try printing a light stripes test page (Troubleshooting, print quality problems, troubleshooting print quality page).

If you do not appear to have many missing jets but the colours are all just wrong it may be that the ink has gone stale. Run a couple of head cleans and you should see the colours start to improve. If it is getting better, all you can do is keep running head cleans until you have replenished all the ink in the printhead well.
This problem is common in situations where a lot of black and white printing is done, with very little colour.
Alternatively, it could be that your wiper/cleaning blade is not cleaning the head properly and is smearing the different coloured inks across the head, or possibly that your printhead is leaking colours but I think the first solution should solve your problem.
Hope this helps.

refill of cartridge several times is not that advisable. time comes that ur cartridge will be damaged. possibility of damaged:
1. the circuit itself in the cartridge might be broken
2. overload of ink.

recommendation:
1. replace a new one or secure other cartridge w/ same spec of ur current cartridge.

I have to ask this question of you, just to make sure this is not an issue. Are you using a factory new ink or toner cartridge?
Please consider the following:
If you are using a refilled or third party cartridges that may well be your problem. Most manufacturers build logic into their products to prevent the use of “Other Equipment Manufactured” cartridges as well as re-filled cartridges.
They do this to prevent problems from contaminated inks or toner causing problems with print quality or damaging the physical printhead or photo conductors.
If you are using factory new ink or toner cartridges, then please call the manufacturer’s Technical Support for assistance with the warranty on the cartridges
Don

i've quite come across this kind of problems many times. Simply replace your cartridge with new ones or try that old one to dip its head in the hot water for sometime.

Replace the toner cartridge with a brand new one. There's no such thing as refilling toner cartridges. When it's empty, the drum unit is finished and it should be replaced, not refilled. Remember that the drum unit is sensitive to light, and will also be damaged if exposed to a great amount of light over a perid.

If a new cartridge does not solve your problem, remove the cartridge and check out the charge roller. It's located in the upper part of the "cartridge-room". It's a grey roller. lower the front cover the get easy access to it.

If it looks nice and clean, just leave it. If it is dirty and smutsy, you should remove it and try to clean it with hot water. If it is damaged in any way, it should be replaced.

Still problems ?

Check out the fixing unit. Remove the fixing unit and look at the the big rollers that put out the paper. If they look nice, put the fixing unit back in. If they are burned and dirty, replace the fixing unit.

Good Luck.

the problem seems to be un-even distribution of ink. try a different and new ink cartridge. Since you are refilling the cartridge, the ink inside of the cartridge is getting magnetized, there by, the ink stick to the drum of the cartridge and don't distribute the ink evenly. shake would clear it. you need to demagnetized the drum.

You are getting leakage from one color cartridge to another. Do deep cleaning and run nozzle check. You may have been using non-Cannon inks. They can corrode the ink cartridge seats due to inferrior quality ink. You may need to replace the print head. Check out Cannon web site under this printer support. Print head is in the $50 neighborhood.

Your printer will probably only work with orignal Lexmark cartridges. Your printer now thinks you are out of ink, so it won't print any more.