[number-1]

This is more a solution than a question

I thought i had a bad rear wheel bearing due to noise coming from the rear so replaced the one i thought it was to no avail. On speaking to a neighbour he ran his hands over the rear tyres and said the inner edge is sightly feathering. Theres about 5mm left on most of the tyre so pretty much brand new. He said its a common thing on older VW Golfs and due to the feathering it makes a loud droning helicopter like rumble. It happens on tyres with block patterns.

He said swap the rears for the fronts and see if the noise moves

I did just that and the noise is now at the front. Has anyone else ever had this issue on the I30 or past cars?

[Greyhound]

See this post re rear tyre wear (second paragraph) on inside edges, although this refers to FD not PD.

Like our FD CW diesel, need to keep up with rear wheel toe in - if you don't keep an eye on it, the inside edges of the rear tyres wear through to the steel, even though the outer looks ok.

Maybe you need to get a wheel geometry check on the rears.

[BrendanP]

I had this issue with a 2011 FD. Drumming noise from the rear, replaced the rear shock absorbers, that fixed the noise but rear tyres still wearing away on inner shoulder with a stepped pattern. Eventually cured by having front and rear wheel alignment set.

[Surferdude]

definitely an alignment issue.
Common on all fwd cars as far back as the Mini.
But more prevalent since the introduction of radial tyres and their extra life.