printer problem?

I have an HP Office Jet R80 4 in 1 printer. I hardly ever use it for color printing but on the rare occasion I do, everything is a nice shade of pink. I've had the product for years and have never gotten around to fixing this problem before.
Any ideas?
Thanks.

 

If this is an original color cartridge, one of the primary colors could be empty. A common practice in the industry, printers come with partial filled and or small cartridges. You may need to replace the cartridge. Another annoying problem with inkjet technology, if you don't use the ink/cartridge, the cartridge head has a tendency to dry up. This problem is easily fixed, since ink is water soluble.
With the printer on, open door / panel to access cartridges. You may need to refer to your manual to determine correct cartridge. Visually acquaint yourself with the layout when removing cartridge, as you must do this in reverse when reinstalling the cartridge. Once cartridge is out, you will be working on side with shiny metal. With a paper towel fold once or twice. Add enough water to get paper towel damp, but not dripping wet. With paper towel on a hard flat surface or large dinner plate, allow shiny metal to come in contact with damp towel. Always keep metal in down position (don't want water going inside of cartridge) and paper towel not water saturated. The trick is ... enough moisture to re-liquefy dry ink, while constantly pulling new ink out of the cartridge into the napkin. Do NOT drag strip over napkin, this can create lint. Every 5 seconds, move metal strip to new area of damp napkin (don't want inks to mix and go back into cartridge. Repeat 3 to 4 times. Hopefully you will notice more ink is being released in each new area of napkin. If not, stop for a minute and repeat again. No way to know if successful until you put cartridge back into printer (may have to do re-alignment test). Print out some small color pictures. If problem continues, repeat all of above. After 3rd repeat, you will have to consider (**) replacing. If successful, print out couple of pictures to pull out any water and old ink. After that, print out one color picture a week to keep head from drying up. Above process also works on black ink cartridge.

(**) If you are at the point of replacing, one more "radical" solution.
With a small coffee cup, fill up with very HOT water. Holding cartridge with hand, immerse metal strip into hot water for 10 seconds. Pull out, let metal strip come in full contact with a dry napkin (flat on table) for 2 seconds. Repeat (?) 5 to ten times.

The above process has worked for me on numerous printers. The cartridge cleaned up or replacement was required. BUT their was one printer (HP-R40) even cartridge replacement did not fix it (tried two new color cartridges) ... just continued to print in a brown hue. User just continued to use printer as a "black output" only until it died.

 

waterflea--With many printer brands, the cartridges must be used to keep working. HP B&W cartridges are among the most forgiving in this respect, but HP color cartridges often just dry out with or without use. They are especially bad with yellow, which is what you are missing when everything is pink.
Of course try Dennis L's suggestion, but, based on your saying the cartridge is years old, you may need to buy a new color cartridge. Many of the office supply stores (Staples, OfficeMax, etc.) now carry their own branded cartridges which are cheaper than HP's. (They are remanufactured--sometimes they will even give you a discount if you "trade in" your old cartridge.) And I think Walgreen's pharmacies are selling HP cartridges at $5 discount this week.
You, of course, could try to refill, but if you are an infrequent user of color and since you are talking about a color cartridge rather than B&W, I do not think you should try that route.