I can't seem to figure this one out. I took my car in for a recall regarding headlight illumination a while back and I thought when they fixed that they would have aimed the lights but they didn't. So I've been driving around with my headlights all out of aim and winter is coming up and I tried to aim them. Well the two aiming mechanisms on each headlight are these little retarded plastic gears which you can turn with a socket wrench. I can't figure out which one does what but I went in there and turned them a bunch of times and I couldn't even notice a difference. Then I saw this:

1997 BUICK REGAL EXTERIOR LIGHTING:HEADLIGHTS
Recall Date: 05/15/1998

Summary:
VEHICLE DESCRIPTION: PASSENGER VEHICLES. THE OWNER MANUALS DO NOT CONTAIN THE REQUIREMENT INFORMATION PERTAINING TO THE VEHICLE HEADLAMP AIMING DEVICE. THIS DOES NOT COMPLY WITH REQUIREMENTS OF FMVSS NO. 108, "LAMPS, REFLECTIVE DEVICES, AND ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT."

Consequence:
IF THE HEADLAMP ASSEMBLIES ARE REPLACED, CUSTOMERS MAY NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY AIM THE HEADLIGHTS.

Remedy:
OWNERS WILL BE MAILED AN OWNER MANUAL'S INSERT WHICH CONTAINS THE APPROPRIATE INFORMATION.

Potential Units Affected: 149342

Notes: BUICK REGAL

Does anyone know how to aim these things? Does it take a ton of turns to see any difference in the headlights or are my aiming mechanisms broken? ANy help would be appreciated.

The GM recall notice sent out to owners all of applicable Regals was just to replace the lamps with no adjustment that I know of.

The inner adjuster moves the beam up and down. Counterclockwise is up. Clockwise is down. The outer adjuster moves the beam left or right but it is limited in movement. If you see no change then you may have bad adjusters.

BTW - The notice in your post was applicable to 1997 models only.

Thanks a lot :)

Make sure you are aiming the lights at something. Like a wall. Dont just adjust them where you think they ought to go! You will end up like the person you hate to meet on a long dark straight stretch of road!