How to Rotate Quad Skate Wheels
For the avid skater, learning to change out and rotate your wheels is a necessary skill. Because the edges of your inside front wheels tend to wear out faster, rotating them prolongs the life of your wheels and eases the toll on your wallet.
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Instructions
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Observe the worn edges of your wheels. You want to rotate your wheels before they get too worn down. When you look at your wheels from the front or back, they should look even on either side. Remember, wheels look boxy when they're new, and you want to rotate them when they still have this relative shape. If one side is too worn down, it's better to purchase new wheels, and remember to rotate them sooner; otherwise, your skating could be thrown off.
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2
Unscrew axle nuts with your skate tool. Use the round part of your skate tool, which fits over any quad skate axle nut. This allows you to take the wheels off the axles. Do this for all your wheels. Keep your axle nuts together. It shouldn't matter if you put an axle nut on a different axle than the one you took it off of, because they're all the same size, and so are your axles.
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Clean off your axles with a used rag. This gets the gunk off your axles. It also ensures they maintain a smooth connection with your wheels, and that your wheels continue to rotate without getting hung up on dirt and oil from the rink.
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Rotate your wheels. Most people wear out the front left wheel the most, because this is the direction they're constantly leaning while skating in a rink. The most effective rotation is: exchange wheels (of the same skate) from front to back and left to right. Therefore, your left front wheel swaps with your right back wheel, and the right front wheel swaps with the left back wheel. Do the same on the other skate.
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Put your wheels back on their axles. Make sure you put your wheels on the right way. The side that's really flat goes on the inside. The one that has the big indentation in the middle and, typically, the wheel brand and design in the center faces out.
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Tighten your axle nuts. You'll tighten your axle nuts the same way you took them off. Don't make them super tight; otherwise, you can't roll. Tighten them just to the point where your wheels can't move, and then start to loosen them a 1/4-inch turn until they're spinning freely but not loose and wobbly.
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Tips & Warnings
If you skate outdoors, you may find your wheels wear down differently. The intent of wheel rotation is to swap the most worn wheel edges with the least worn. Use your observation to note which wheels are the most worn, and then exchange them with the ones that are the least worn.
