harmonymouse

I understand I'm reviving an old thread and I'm sorry if that bothers anyone, but I believe I have something unique to contribute that might help others. When we got married I bought the best suitcases we could afford in our early 20's - red soft side Riccardo Beverly Hills from Kohl's, lol. They've been on a few trips a year for 25+ years, except for one bag I used for over 3 years in a job requiring weekly air travel several times a month - and we're still using that bag. None of the zippers have failed, and I've only had to replace a few of the zipper pull tabs. We use public transit as much as possible and walk miles at a time pulling our luggage, so our wheels take quite a beating on unforgiving surfaces like sidewalks, roads/shoulders, railroad crossings, and bricks/cobbles. My husband noticed the standard hard black plastic wheels are hollow, so rather than wait for them to fail he preemptively took apart the luggage wheel assembly (an easy job; there's probably a YouTube video for that) and replaced all our wheels with inline skate wheels. You wouldn't believe how smoothly they glide now! Every few years they get a wheel inspection, replacing bearings or wheels as needed. When I bought them in 1996 I never would have imagined that our affordable bags would be going strong in 2024 without any rips/tears, zipper failures, or wheel disasters. We never lock our luggage, though we do use luggage bands. They're still nice on the inside, but outside they're so battered looking that they would appear to be a poor choice to steal or raid - and I don't mind that at all.