Ever since I decided to swap my trusty but worn out epson colour photoprinter with it's 5 colour inks plus black for a Canon pixma ip4700 printer I have used refillable cartridges and from the same supplier bottles of BS standard colour Canon type ink. During the 3 year life of the printer where it was used for everyday printing and making stunning colour prints I never had a problem and think I had to use the jet clean facility about twice in that period. This contrasted to the Epson having to be put through a cleaning cycle just about every time I wanted to do photo printing.
Canon are aware that their printing heads may not last the life of the printer and make replacing same dead easy. The only problem is that a replacement head costs £50, and a brand new Canon Pixma IP4900 costs £55!
Whether I made the correct decision or not I will never know, but assuming that other parts of the IP 4700 were wearing out and that the same may apply to my refillable cartridges, I opted for the new printer. This necessitated a new set of refillable cartridges, but filling these was even easier than those used by the IP 4700. The new printer is working superbly, producing photo prints of similar quality to its predecessor.
Each cartridge costs approximately 50p to refill!
P.P.