Anybody had any problems with gearboxes on a 1999 tdi slx? With the car in the air and in gear with the offside wheel held, I'm getting a lot of whiring bearing noise from the nearside. Has anyone had this problem? Also makes a lot of noise normal driving at about 50 going round left hand bends. I have checked the wheel bearings and they seem ok. The car has covered 221000.

That noise probably is your wheel bearings. The wheel-rocking test doesn't really work on Golf-platformed cars (at least not on the Mk4s) as the bearings still hold the load fine when failing, just become noisy. Change the passenger one and it'll go away IMO.

It's worth a try, ill try to get one the weekend. My only concern was that I replaced both front bearings about a year ago, shouldn't really be needing another one just yet. But hopefully that's the problem, bit cheaper than another box.

It does sound unusual for a replacement to fail so quickly given that the factory ones did over 10 years for you. Were they replaced with OEM, or pattern parts?

sounds like a cv joint on the way out.