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Here's a basic rundown of significant changes to the TE610 by year:
- 2006 – model launched with blue and yellow plastics
- 2007 – changed to red and white plastics with BNG – “Bold New Graphics”
- 2008 – added EFI, eliminated compression adjusters in forks
- 2009 – rims changed from silver to black
- 2010 – no production
A new model, the TE630, was launched in 2011 and is similar mechanically to the TE610. The chassis itself is little changed, but the plastics were redesigned and the engine has a few more cc and a new cylinder head. It doesn't seem clear to anyone outside the company whether the exhaust system with dual silencers was necessary to meet noise and emissions regulations, or if some executive just thought its resemblance to BMW's rotund touring bikes looked good. The TE630 was discontinued in the U.S. for 2012, but remains available in other markets.
The later TE610 forks can be easily upgraded to adjustable compression damping by installing the valves from earlier models, so the only meaningful difference between TE610 years is whether the bike has a carburetor or fuel injection. One Husky expert I spoke with insists that the EFI bikes are less troublesome than carbed models. However, the failure modes of a carb can be addressed with simple tools in the outback, so I'm more comfortable with it.
That's not just me channeling your grandfather –EFI on these and many other dirt bikes still has a lot more issues than we're used to in cars. The carburetor is a Keihin FCR, almost universally used on four-stroke dirt bikes, so jets and parts are competitively priced and available pretty much anywhere dirt bikes and dirt bike accessories are sold. Gravity is a very reliable and inexpensive fuel pump, and a carbed TE610 can be bump started with a totally failed battery.
The TE610 was never a really expensive bike to begin with. Lots of owners regard the bikes as special enough to command a premium, but there are definitely deals out there. If you prefer to buy new with a warranty, there may still be some new 610s or 630s hanging around dealerships – and if you find one, it's a buyer's market.
The hardest part of buying used seems to be actually finding one close to you in decent condition. A few TE610s were bought new and then hardly ridden (common with almost all dirt bikes), but a lot of them were used the same way I plan to: riding to the dirty end of heck and back. When their owners are finally ready to move on, the bikes are thrashed.
The pavement-oriented SM610 is fundamentally the same bike, except it has different colored plastics and pavement-oriented suspension, brakes, wheels and tires. Depending where you live, it may be easier to find an SM610, but the consensus is that it's easier to make a TE610 work on pavement than to make an SM610 work off-road. The SM610 can be an awesome motorcycle, but its peer group is completely different than the bikes surveyed here.
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| A nationwide Craigslist search, cashing in some frequent flier miles and experiencing my first ever Whitecastle sliders (In-N-Out kills them) led to a bike in the back of this U-Haul. |
I found a garage-lurking 2006 TE610 with ridiculously low miles – not even to the end of the manual's recommended break-in. Ridden mostly on farm roads and fields without rocks, there were no scratches on the engine cradle part of the frame. Some Husky fans say blue and yellow is faster than red and white, which would be a bonus. That may not actually be true, but I still dig the traditional Swedish colors. Next time, we'll start on the checks and fixes that should be done to get the bike ready to ride off into the boonies.
