Already posted this in "Ask a Tech" but thought I'd open it to a wider audience...

Have an ongoing issue with the Octy for the last few weeks now and it seems to be steadily getting worse. There is a buzz coming from somewhere at the front occuring when you drive at around 30mph+ but most noticeable at 60mph and particularly once warmed through. It's related to wheel speed rather than engine speed, you can coast in neutral and the pitch will remain the same, slowly dropping as the car speed decreases. We've had it up in the air and checked all the wheel bearings and there doesn't seem to be any play or noise coming from them. You don't really feel any vibration in the car whilst driving, it doesn't really seem to get worse when going round a corner in either direction. I'm not starting to wonder if it's something more serious and gearbox related but wondered if anyone had any suggestions? Next step for now is to check and top up the gearbox oil and see if that helps at all. It's a 2005 Mk1 vRS with just under 100k miles on it. It's also booked in to have the clutch and DMF done in 3 weeks time, don't know if it could be anything in that area buzzing?

Fingers crossed it's something simple and not going to involve a new gearbox!

I've tried swapping wheels front to back in case it's a tyre issue but the drone remains in the same place. I am starting to wonder now if it is a wheel bearing as the noise seems to increase under load. If I'm steering left so loading up the front right and unloading the front left the noise seems to increase. There really doesn't seem to be any play in either front wheel, and no noise when spinning the wheel whilst the car's up on a jack but something obviously not right somewhere. Noise starts to become noticeable from around 30mph and just increases in pitch as speed rises. It's most noticeable at around 55mph.

What do people reckon? Anyone else suffered similar symptoms?

Does sound like a wheel bearing. I've repaced two on mine since ownership. They never showed any signs of play or roughness either, just a drone which changed with direction change.

I had similar problem, was convinced it was a Wheel bearing, but my local garage couldn't find a problem, even though he could hear the noise.

It was a tyre issue, the Vredstein's I had on the car were one directional, and after a puncture one day, the spare was fitted, but was on the wrong direction, when the car got MOT'd it was put on the right way, but because of the wear on the wrong direction, it has made the tyre very noisy.

It was 2000 miles ago, and I was hoping it would settle in, but it hasn't, and if it wasnt such a decent tyre, would have been binned ages ago

It's definitely not tyre related. I've swapped front to back and the noise hasn't moved. It's still coming from the front of the car even after swapping them round.

Gearbox oil has been checked and is fine. Probably got 100ml flowing out of it when the filler was removed (yes it was definitely the filler, not the drain!). Did have a panic though when I was buying the gear oil as I thought it looked a bit thin compared to stuff I've used in older cars before but it all checked out right! Kind of academic though as I didn't need to top it up!

Pleased to report that it was a wheel bearing as opposed to anything more major like the gearbox!

However it was an absolute mammoth task replacing the bearings! Travelled over to a friends work place where they've got a press after work yesterday and we made a start on the passenger side bearing at around 18:00. Got it all stripped down, bearing pressed out and the new one pressed in and other than having to wrestle the suspension strut and driveshaft around a lot during refitting it all went relatively smoothly. Took it out for a test run and the noise was still there. I was starting to think that it was getting towards new gearbox time as we were convinced that the noise had been coming from the passenger side wheel. We made a start on the drivers side bearing at around 21:30 and almost immediately ran in to a pretty major issue! Whilst undoing the lower ball joint nut the internal hex in the threaded part of the ball joint split, effectively locking the nut on and making re-tightening or removal impossible. My mate attempted welding bolts into the hex to try and get enough leverage on it to re-tighten the nut so that I could at least drive the car home and we could try again another day but nothing worked. In the end we decided to just crack on and cut the nut off. We then continued with replacing the bearing and refitted everything back on the car. Whilst doing this I'd phoned my wife and given her the mission of getting into GSF first thing in the morning to get a replacement track control rod end and then driving the 60 miles over to where I was so that I could fit the new part and actually get the car home! I then had to stay the night at my mates and we finally left the workshop at around 1:20 and got back to his at 2:00! Four hours later I was up and about again ready to head back into the workshop as my mate was due back at work again! Finally got it all sorted at around 11:00 after my wife turned up with the part, took it for a test run and the noise was gone! It was all worthwhile in the end but it was a bloody nightmare getting everything sorted!

Important lesson learned - If you're going to work on a car, you're best to do it when part shops are open JUST IN CASE!