I know mine was stuck as well. I was at the DRagon meet and some guy, much heavier than myself, sat in the car and hit the lever, and the seat went down! I like it all the way down, but the point is, it now works easily. I move the seat once a week just to keep the mechanism freed up.

You RAISE the set by pulling up on the lever with no one sitting in the seat, that is how I do it anyway, the lever is not a "jacking up" thing, if you have weight in the seat it is not going to to up. YOu can get it to do DOWN with the lever, using your weight but I don't think you can raise the seat with weight on it.