Riding lawn mower and lawn roller

[Eric]

Hello,

I just bought a used Simplicity Sunrunner riding mower (the mower is in the front and the wheels turn from the back). It's an 8hp Briggs and Stratton engine. The manual does not mention towing capacity.

I would like to attach a small lawn roller to it. The lawn roller weighs about 225lbs filled with water. The grading of my lawn is almost entirely flat -- I just want to knock down some little ridges and especially mole tunnels.

I asked if my mower could handle this towing weight at the local Simplicity dealer and the guy said it could do it as long as I went slow. At the same time I had an email into Simplicity's headquarters and their response was that the mower was too small.

Any opinions from the group on who was correct? Was Simplicity being overly cautious and the local guy more realistic? Or, was Simplicity correct and the local guy just telling me what I wanted to hear?

Thanks in advance, Eric

[William W. Plummer]

The thing that adds to the tow-load is bumps in the lawn. But that's why you're rolling. I've rolled 2 or 3 times using a 12.5 hp Sears and a standard lawn roller. I didn't have any problems pulling it, but it didn't do any good either. We won't even go into the moles, voles, chipmunks and squirrels.