I have a whining noise coming roughly from the front end drivers side. Not evident at low speed but becoming obvious as road speed increases to around 40mph and above. Sounds similar to a shot wheel bearing ( I know this since i had the front offside bearing replaced a few months back) I'm not convinced its the bearing again since there appears to be no play at the wheel and the noise does not vary when turning the steering. Nothing to do with the clutch/gearbox either as the noise is always present, coasting or otherwise. Is it possible that the replaced wheel bearing is breaking down or could there be another problem, perhaps with the drive shaft? Any way to find out? S40 2.0 T with 180,000 on the clock! Thanks people...

Does the noise change when the road surface changes, if it does it could be tyre noise. If the driveshafts havent been replaced they could be pretty worn at that mileage. The only real way to tell which side it is or if its tyre noise is to jack one side of the car up and gently put the car into drive(start off in third gear), the wheel off the ground will be the only one moving. Increase speed on that wheel and see if the noise comes from that side. Then do the same on the other side. If you cant replicate the noise chances are its the tyres.

just out of interest what sort of tyres have you got fitted,mine has pirelli p6000 on the front and they are very noisy,especially over the anti slip surfaces near some traffic lights and bends,i've heard of others suffering that problem as well with that make of tyre

The wrong tyres on these cars do sound like a wheel bearing going. I know as I changed all four bearing before switching tyres. Pirelli tyres are especially bad out of the premium tyre manufacturers. If its used as a taxi I as long as the bearing is ok I wouldnt bother fitting high performance tyres but there are some cheaper tyres which work well on these cars once yours have worn out.

Very cheap tyres can often make a drone/thrum noise at speed, I had exactly that on my last car and it turned out to be the god-awful tyres it had on it. It's got to be worth a try ;)

i also had the problem with tyre noise. sounded just like a nackered wheel bearing (loud whining that increased with higher speeds) i refused to believe it at first, replaced the front bearings and rear hubs only to find the noise finally stopped when i changed the tyres! they were yokohama parada spec2

What about the driveshaft?