You could pull the fuse.

You can turn headlights off of “auto”. Look at the controls on the stem that controls your lights and windshield wipers. Then you can turn them down to your parking lights.

You pretty much have to pull the fuse or disconnect the bulbs. The alternative would require some hefty modifications to your electrical system. Yet another reason I am glad I drive a car that is over 25 years old… Setting the parking brake often turns the lights out, but obviously makes driving impossible.

@zenvelo I am fairly certain that if such a basic, common feat were an option, the owners manual would say so.

On your car, do the headlights turn on with a pull stem? If so then turn the knob right or left and see if that disables the AUTO feature. My old Buick had the same thing and that’s how we’d turn them off.

I don’t think you can. It’s a safety feature in those cars so it would be counter productive to be able to disable it easily. I haven’t even touched the light knob in our Buick yet because I haven’t had a reason to do it. As soon as you turn the key, on they come.

@woodcutter But, like I said, there were plenty of other newer model cars around us and they had THEIR lights off…. we’ll have to play with it.

@Dutchess_III But maybe they were other makes of cars? I’ve always wondered if lights always on was an extra tax on the cars electrical system and wanted to somehow get them to turn off. But it became one of those things I just got used to.
Christmas lights are only up for a tiny part of the year. I would hope the modification isn’t too expensive to just use it one or two times.

@woodcutter Given what I know of the way GM does things, I don’t think they thought it through all the way :/
Then again, my experience with GM is that the only good vehicles they have made in the last 30 years (aside from Corvettes) have been re-badged Toyotas.

From the 2005 Buick Century Owners manual: To turn off the automatic headlamp feature when it is dark outside, move the exterior lamp control to the parking lamp position. The parking lamps will remain illuminated and the headlamps will turn off.

The exterior lamp control is on the far left and marked A on this diagram.

@zenvelo Well, I guess it does say so!

@jerv It is possibly the worst owner’s manual I have ever seen. Way too much stuff in there that was put in by lawyers. Not nearly enough on instrumentation.

W00T! I love Fluther. Thanks @zen… But…why the hell do they stick information about the one thing, the head lamps, in different sections of the owner’s manual???