Auto Power Off facility on Canon iP4200

I recently "enabled" the Auto Power Off and On facility on my Canon iP4200
thinking this would conserve energy. However, I noticed that whenever the
printer was automatically switched on at the start of each print job it
appeared to carry out what I assumed to be a short cleaning cycle even if
the interval between print jobs was very short. Can someone confirm this is
correct. If so I believe this would result in un-necessary waste of ink and
would greatly outweigh any saving in energy costs. Can anyone suggest an
optimum strategy for controlling the above?
--
Colin Reddish