I understand your concerns about the dangers of transient voltage spikes
on the AUX line. Normally, a good car battery will surpress all but a fraction of the spikes if a good heavy ground is used.
I will add a 14.5 volts zener and possibly a Transient suppresser to the circuit. This way, the circuit would be safe in-case the car battery goes bad. It would basicly duplicate the 555 circuit power on the infomation center which came as a factory option (display Clk). The 555 timer I'm using has a nominal value of 14.5 Volts and is spec'd from 12.5 to 20 Vdc.
Electronic experiance i