Bad vibes

hamburg

right, having a major headache with this car of mine.
Driving down the motorway today and a serious vibration started so pulled over to the hard shoulder. i had a quick look under the bonnet,but couldn't see anything amiss.

I decided to try and drive it to the next exit and get it off the motorway, but as soon as it got up to about 20/30 kph it felt like the car was going to shake itself to pieces. so i just stopped and called out the tow truck.
When i got it home , i put it up on axle stands and took the front wheels off. had a good look again and pulled and prodded, but still everything looked good so started the engine and put her in 3rd gear and let the clutch out, and holy fook it sounded like a bag of nails.

I think it might be the diff is buggered or else it might be the cv joints on either end of the driveshafts but i will have to strip the driveshafts out her to check. never having had this problem before is it easy to determine if the diff is bogey once the driveshafts are out?

I suppose once they are out and starting her up if the vibration is still there that more or less condemns the gearbox/diff? any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Car is a 04 1.4 tdi polo with approx 222,000 kms on it.

hamburg

i got this sorted in the end,it was the passenger side outer cv joint.it was breaking up inside the boot,although the boot was intact,it fell apart when i took the boot off. new joint and boot and all is good.