5 speed manual car makes a noise in reverse only backs up fine an all gears are smooth to shift if you take it out of reverse he noise goes away

Do you have spur gears or helical gears? That could be that cause of the noise, and not a problem with your reverse.

The reverse gear in these older vdubs are the weakest part of the trany, they are notorious for breaking, first it starts out with noise in reverse then it will start making a clicking noise when backing up before the gear breaks then you have no reverse. I've owned 9 vdubs and 4 out of the 6 standard ones had a noisy reverse. You may get lucky and if you don't abuse the reverse gear (baby it) it should last a long time, but if you put it into reverse crunching the gear most times it won't be long till that gear comes apart. Worse case is if the gear breaks off a tooth and that broken peace gets mashed into the other gears in the trany you will have a destroy the trany. My advise is just becareful when you put it into reverse and don't hammer the throttle only in reverse tho your ok to drive the vehicle normally (or drive it hard) in forward motion. Just don't be shocked or pissed if the reverse gear doesn't work anymore some day. It is a easy fix to replace the reverse gear in the trany but it involves removal and disassembly of the trany.

not sure which gears i have will be finding out soon thanx for the infromation

thank you so much for the reply i am going to be having it serviced at a transmission shop before something major happens :) thank you tonya

Jon I have a 2001 cabrio that falls out of reverse is that a linkage issue or a messed up reverse gear?