Because the visuals are created directly from the digital information in your music, what sounds like a bug in the VU meters could not be due to alternator whine. Perhaps upgrading to 2.0 final might fix the visuals issue?

There is an excellent FAQ answer that describes how to deal with alternator whine. It's a pain to have to sort through because (most of the time) you have to take your dash apart to fix the problem, but if you want it fixed it's probably the only way.

John