Why is my first page OK-ish but print quality insanely bad by page 3?

I have an HP Officejet 8610. Quality starts out fine and is deteriorating by the end of the first page of a print job. By the second page, it's pretty bad and atrocious by the third page. I've uninstalled the printer completely and reinstalled it. I've done the auto-alignment and auto-cleaning of the printhead from the printer settings. I'm out of ideas, but I hate the idea of replacing something that might be fixable. If anyone has any other ideas that I could try, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks in advance.