[Shadow Cat]

I have a 28cm Trixie wheel (the green and blue one) and it worked a dream for the 16 months I had my last hammy and the first month of having my current little lady. It was quiet and my hamsters used it all the time and liked it, but now it won't run smoothly and shakes a lot when she's running in it. It also clunks at night when it occasionally hits the stand.

I figured that perhaps it had just seen better days so bought a new one, exactly the same model, from Amazon and it's even worse! The wheel itself hits the stand and makes such a racket that I can't sleep. I've tried with all possible combinations of the new and old wheel and stand and can't get it to work how it did.

I'm going to return the one I just bought as it was a waste of money to buy a new one (I'll wipe it down first of course, even though Peggy only had it in her cage for about 2 hours).

I have two questions really:

Has anyone had the same kind of problem of this wheel becoming unstable over time and do you have any ideas on how to fix it?

Or, can anyone recommend another wheel of the same size that I could try instead? Peggy's a big gal and I can't find another large wheel for sale online.

I should also say that I have tried attaching the wheel to the bars of her cage without the stand, but the plastic tray sticks out so much (she's in a Barney cage) that the wheel only hits it, and there isn't room to fix it so it's completely above the tray.

The only place to keep the cage is my bedroom. I think if the sound wakes me up one more time I will go insane.