Officejet Pro 8500 printhead won't align

[jphart]

Yes, this is piece of junk, and 33,000 views prove it!

And the fact that HP doesn't comment at all on this forum speaks loudly indeed.

Use it as an anchor.  Go buy a B&W laser printer for $200 instead.

We bought a Brother MFC 7860DW and liked it so much have purchased two more since!

[pmk1]

"Accept responsibility"? What did you do wrong? Nothing! HP profited from manufacturing a defective product, didn't offer a solution and left its customers holding the bag. Worse, they keep making money because the only 'solution' is buying more of their products (ink & printheads) which break prematurely. In any other industry that's criminal. Shame on HP.

[Docaroo]

Add my name to the list. We've had our HP for a few years now and tonight black ink wasn't coming through despite the level indicators saying it was half full. I cleaned the heads once to no avail, tried it again, and then it went into a spasm of cleaning the printheads repeatedly. It used up a pile of ink--and all 4 colours, too, even though only the black had a problem.

I wanted to abandon the cleaning process since it was taking so long but I could not because the printer was "Busy." Fortunately, it eventually stopped but let's just say my faith in HP products has been shaken. Is it that hard to have some user feedback that indicates how much cleaner the heads are getting with each pass? And why use up every color of ink when only one has a problem?

Afterward the cleaning was over, I decided to run the print head alignment routine. The printer hummed and whirred and eventually spit out a couple of pages of supposedly meaningful stripes of colours, which to my eyes didn't look particularly well aligned. Since there was no explanation of whether the results were good or not other than the untrustworthy printer saying all was well, all I could do was shrug and hope that the printer gods were finally smiling upon me.

We put a man on the moon in 1969; is it that hard to produce a highly reliable printer 44 years later? And to have a device that is designed from the user's perspective?

[bwlifeway1]

Replaced printer heads and they won't align after many attempts. All of the ink cartridges are full as well. What can I do?

[pmk1]

Simple.  Go get a case of beer, invite a bunch of friends over.  Then take your wonderful HP printer up to the top floor of your building, say "1, 2, 3" and then toss the printer off the roof.  If you're lucky, it'll fly away and you'll never have to deal with it again.  Otherwise, go clean up the mess and enjoy the beer because the only constructive application for this piece of junk is the enjoyment it gives its owners as gravity works its magic and it smashes to pieces.

[ralphhross]

The Pro 8500 has a design and manufacturing flaw in that all printheads don't work with all printers per my evaluation. Return the printer to the store and get one that does not have removeable print heads. You are unlikely to use a printer long enough to need to replace printheads.  By the way I have found that having a monochrome laser printer like the HP LaserJet 400 M401 or similar is great plus I have an HP Inkjet Photsmart 7510 (or similar) for color printing and scanning. I print mostly on the laser and when I need I can scan and print color on the Inkjet - saves buying a lot of inkjet cartridges.

[corpcomp]

I am lucky as I've used the 8500 A909g for five years without an issue.  Unfortunately, I received an error message to replace or maybe it was clean the printheads.  Whatever the message was, I decided it would be quicker and easier to replace the printheads rather than try to clean them manually.  The option from the menu was merely using up ink supplies.  Since replacing the printheads, the printer provides the alignment failure message.  As has been stated earlier, the document prints without issue and the printer attempts to align and fails.  I am burning through ink.

I have followed all the steps provided by HP and those found in this thread.  This includes pressing down the foam mat under the printheads, replacing ink, and removing the rear document tray. 

lions99 do you have any suggestions?

After five years of service, my first thought is to dump the printer and buy another.  However, I want to be sure this is not able to be saved.  I prefer to not go through the hassle of buying and setting up two new ones.  Yes, I buy them in pairs for our office.

[muurof]

alignment failure ,black ink not coming through

[tangerone1]

Funny!

[Melvin15]

My hp 8500a will not print in Black, I put a new carterage in it , alined it 3 times , still will not print in black?