Why suitcase wheels stop spinning

1. Empty the case and lay it on its back so the wheels are off the ground and you can see them.
2. Spin each wheel by hand. The seized one usually has a visible dark band wrapped at the axle - hair, carpet fibre, thread, fishing line.
3. Pick the debris out with tweezers, a seam ripper or a bent paperclip. Work it loose rather than cutting blind, which risks the axle.
4. Wash the wheel and housing with warm water and a drop of detergent on an old toothbrush, then dry it completely.
5. Apply a very small amount of dry silicone lubricant to the axle. Not oil, and not grease - both hold grit and bring the problem back worse.
6. Spin it. A clean wheel should turn several full revolutions from a flick.

If it is clean, dry, lubricated and still will not spin freely, the bearing has failed or the axle is bent. At that point you are into the repair-or-replace question below.

A spinner wheel is designed to roll in the direction it is pointing. Drag a four-wheel case sideways - which is what happens when you pull it diagonally behind you at speed - and the wheels scrub rather than roll, wearing a flat into the polyurethane. Bouncing a loaded case down a flight of stairs does the same thing faster.

A flat spot cannot be undone. The wheel will click or thump once per revolution for the rest of its life. The fix is behavioural: pull a spinner case alongside you rather than behind, and lift it at kerbs and stairs rather than dragging it over them.

Four spinner wheels are better in a terminal and worse everywhere else. Two large inline wheels are usually recessed into the case body, carry the load on a bigger diameter, and roll over cobbles and gravel that stop a spinner dead - which is also why they survive longer on a European city trip.

The full argument, including the hand-position trade-off, is in spinner vs roller luggage. For a bag that will mostly live in airports, spinners; for a bag going to a city with old streets, inline.

• Check the warranty first. Wheels are a wear part but a failed mount on a young case is usually covered, and a manufacturer claim costs nothing.
• Luggage repair shops will replace wheels on most mid-range and premium cases, often for less than a new bag.
• On a budget case, replacement wins. The wheels and handle are where the cost was saved, and a repaired cheap case usually fails somewhere else next.
• Never fly a wheel you know is failing. A wheel that seizes mid-terminal means dragging or carrying a loaded bag to the gate.

If this is the second thing to go, the handle is usually the first - how to fix a stuck suitcase handle covers that failure, and the two together are a reasonable signal to replace rather than keep repairing.