A kitchen drawer that sticks is usually the runner
I yanked the cutlery drawer in May and it stopped halfway, then dropped on the left. I thought the unit had sagged. I emptied it, looked underneath, and the runner on that side had walked. Two screws were in the last thread of a blown hole. The drawer was hanging on one slide. I moved the runner to sound timber, put proper screws in, and it ran. The kitchen was the same kitchen. The slide had come off.
A runner is a pair of tracks. One on the drawer, one on the carcass. Rollers or ball bearings, they have to stay in line and they have to stay screwed on. If a screw walks, the drawer binds, then it drops. If the track is bent, no amount of shove will save it. People order a new kitchen. I do the slide.
When I check I take the drawer out. Most of them lift off the slides once they are open. I look at both runners. I want them parallel, at the same height, and tight. A screw that turns without biting is a hole already gone. I move the runner a little, or I put a dowel or a bigger screw into timber that still exists, not into the same crumb. I look at the rollers. Hair, a crisp, a screw that fell in last year, all of that will stop a drawer. I pick it out. I do not grease a dirty track and call it done. Grit in grease is a grinding paste.
I also look at the load. A cutlery drawer full of unused gadgets will bend a cheap roller slide. I take the dead weight out. The runner is not a shelf for things you do not use.
Skip a new unit because one drawer stuck. Skip forcing it until the front comes off in your hands. Skip mixing a left-hand slide with a right-hand one from a mixed tin. They look alike. They are not. Skip oil from the bike on a ball-bearing slide that only needed a wipe. Skip packing the drawer so full the sides rub the carcass and then blaming the runner. If the box is swollen and rubbing, that is the box. I stop if the carcass is coming apart. That is not a slide.
Soft-close is extra. If the damper has died and the drawer still runs true, I can live with a close I do by hand. If the slide is off, I fix the slide first. A new damper on a hanging drawer is a damper in the air.
UK year is whenever you cook. Heat and steam in a kitchen will swell a cheap box in winter with the drying on. I still start at the screws. I now empty a sticking drawer before I lean on it. If I can see daylight under one runner, I do not pull harder.
I run the empty drawer. It should come out in a line and go back without a lift from me. If it still cocks, I measure the height of both slides from the carcass floor. A few millimetres off is a stick you will feel every morning.
I do not need a new kitchen because the drawer stuck. I need runners that are in line, screws that bite, and a box I have not overloaded.
If I later add a buy link here, it will be a paid promo.