Panny laser copier; dark on one side, light on the other

[videobruce]

I have a older Panny laser printer/scanner (MB-271). The drum is fairly new. I don't print often.
The cartridge ran out, I refilled it with toner that I bought 5/22. Is that considered too old?
The printer was printing fine. Now after filling it prints dark on one side, and gray on the other. The text goes from black to gray and the background goes from white to gray.
I contacted the place (AAA Toner) where I bought the toner and he claims it's the drums wiper blade. If so, why so suddenly?

 

[videobruce]

I looked closer at the cartridge itself.
There was little toner left in the cartridge. The cartridge opens up when you insert into the the drum unit emptying out it's content. The toner is all in the drum, not in the cartridge other than the coating on the inside of the container itself.
I've never had any other Laser printer other than this one and it was the 2nd same model I just placed in service a year ago that replace an existing one, same model. This unit probably has less than 2k copies on it.

What I don't get is the prints were perfect before the toner ran out. The supplier claims the 19 months age of the toner is not the issue, but I don't understand how a drum unit can just go bad with the next print??

 

[videobruce]

I opened the drum unit up and cleaned it out best I could including what appeared to be the 'blade'.
I did some test prints and they are far better, but there is still a residue that gets worse towards the left side. The text itself seems mostly ok.

The page count on the copier is 3200. The count of the new drum itself is 1800 so I can't see it being a high count issue

Anyone chime in here??