Oh my
It's by no means undriveable - it's just intermittant. I was going to splash out on a gearbox oil change, but looks like I may not be getting this done now.
I need to get it into my indie to see what he thinks. He's never seen this car - he's a VAG specialist and I've been there loads with my old Skoda Superb.
Whilst I think about it, is this issue likely to cause any problems if left unsorted? i.e. would the steering fail completely eventually, or would it just gradually get worse until I had no power steering assistance at all? This isn't my main car, so it's only doing about 5000 miles per year.