The luggage works bags are pieces of ****. They are heavy and low quality. I bought the $100 costco bag. It was cheaper than the repairs to fix my 2 year old luggage works bag. Still trying to decide if I'm going to buy a briggs and riley or tumi bag. Costco bag is a nice bag, but the wheels are a little cheap. I might try and replace them with roller blade wheels like flight attendants do to their travel pros. I will say the weight difference is astounding compared to the luggage works. There is no reason to carry that heavy of a bag around. Nevermind that it damages everything it touches (car paint, trunk liner, hardwood floors in house.)

Take a hack saw to them between the wheel and the frame of the bag. Obviously, you'll have to replace the bolt, bearings, etc that you destroy, but it'll get everything off the bag without snapping one of the ears off the frame. The replacement parts were available last I looked a year or so ago. Also, make sure you've broken the bolts loose from the frame so you're able to grab the nub that's left and unscrew it after you cut the rest out. Good luck. Maybe somebody else has a less drastic idea, but that's what I had to do.

If you want to make a great bag look at the original ebags bag.

ok thanks, i'm giving it a two day, two shot pb blaster soak right now to see if it'll come apart like normal first

Hopefully that works, but I wouldn't bank on it. If yours are stuck like mine were, you've got no choice but to cut them out. I actually soaked mine in glass full of pb blaster for a solid week after cutting everything out to see if I could get everything separated had I been more patient. With two men pulling apart as hard as we could, nothing budged but our egos. Without regular lubrication, those parts literally fuse together.

Try heating the bolt...

Mine is going on year 9. I wouldn't dream of carrying something else. That handle on the LW seems like a first class POS.

I'm silently chuckling when I read this about replacing wheels. About a decade ago, I replaced the wheels on an old Travel Pro. The axles were welded in tight. I have a pretty well-equipped shop and ended up using several thousand dollars worth of tools--rivet gun, punch set, band saw, drill press, torch, etc. By the time I finally replaced the wheels, it looked like a tornado passed through my shop!

I'm not sure if I'd have the patience to do it again. At the time, a combination of being stubborn and being a cheapskate saw me to a successful replacement.

As for the more general topic of the Luggage Works bags, I still have the one I purchased 10 years ago. It's worn, but still in acceptable condition. The wheel bearings squeak every so often, but I'm not anxious to replace them. It's definitely heavy, but so am I, so who wants to keep score on that front!?! The only failure on the bag is the foam covering on the handle. My plan is to tape the foam back together and then lace on a thin leather cover like folks do to cover a car steering wheel. Just been too lazy to get it done so far.

You can pop the side cover of the bearing and grease it, I've done it a couple times after hearing that squeak.

It's compensating for lack of other "shortcomings".