I was having some electrical issues with battery drain overnight and during driving. I cleaned all the grounds and poked around for a few days. Turns out I didn't remove a couple nuts from the new alternator terminals and they were killing the voltage flow back into the car, rendering the alternator basically useless. For whatever wonderful reason the overnight battery drain stopped too.

So two days ago running on 13.1V with the radio and A/C at full blast I drove from OC to Vegas. With a car packed full of crap I burned through 3/4 of a tank and averaged 21.2mpg. No problems whatsoever other than bouts of the 55mph shimmy (= step on gas/go faster).

If anyone's out here drop me a line. All hail the M30!:buttrock:buttrock

Cool. I drove from Vegas to SF last August (and to Vegas from SE Florida), also with the car packed full o' crap, on an M30 with 176k. Definitely made me happy that this 18 year-old car with 40-year old technology could do all that. I can't understand why anyone would want to be in Vegas in the summer, but to each their own. I'd suggest paying extra attention to the health of your cooling system.