2019 Husqvarna TE300i Full Review

hey there you're watching dirt bike Channel I'm your host Kyle Brotherton and today we're doing the full review of this 2019 Husqvarna te 300 I stick around [Music] hey just real quick if you're watching this video before April 30th you still have a chance to win this dirt bike I am given this sucker away go to dirt bike Channel calm right now and get entered to win this bike but you you have to do it before the end of April 30th these full review videos are tend to be pretty long because I like to be pretty comprehensive and the things that I'm covering on this but for the for you guys that say it's too long and I'm not gonna watch the entire video let me give you a synopsis here there's a lot to like on these bikes there's a lot more to light than there is to dislike are they perfect no are they very very good yes is this bike a little bit slow too to warm up yeah they're a little bit cold cold-blooded do they have maybe a teeny teeny bit less bottom end because they run very very lean yeah that's probably true too but overall these bikes run phenomenal I've had like I don't know six of them of the TPI bikes and they've all run very very well they don't all run the same this one actually runs a little bit better than the KTM that I have sitting right outside my shop so not every TPI bike runs amazing all the time some of them Rutter run better than others so they're not perfect we also need KTM and Husqvarna to be able to allow us to tune these things and when that happens it'll be even better so without further ado let's get in and let's just start talking about the things on this bike that I really like and then we'll follow it up with some of the things that I didn't like in fact I'll probably just sprinkle them in as I go forward through the bike I'm gonna start at the front wheel I just go through the bike these Huskies are gonna come stock with a Dunlop 8081 front tire which is an okay tire has pretty good performance but it doesn't last super long and I ended up switching this out with the shin kill 546 tire because I needed to compare it to another bike and I wanted to compare the exact same tires they come with the D ID dirt star front wheels and and rear wheels and these and these are a pretty good rim I've got no problem with these I ended up switching this over to tubeless because that's the kind of guy that I am so there's nothing wrong with the front wheel package it's just it's totally fine the brakes are Magura brakes on these on these husky bikes they use a maguro brake so we've got a maguro calculator down here and Makura a maguro brake lever up here and master cylinder and they work really really well I don't think it gives you quite as much power as what the Brembo brakes do but it's a very very good brake as far as if I was rating this I would say it's probably the second best brake that I have used it's just a little bit squishy to me I feel like I sometimes I feel like I almost need to use two fingers on the brake and I like to only I like to only have one finger so sometimes I feel like I don't have quite enough power on the brake but it's very very good these bikes come stock with the Explorer 48 fork and I think it's a very good fork for a lot of people it absorbs the chop it absorbs the bumps it's not it's not valved super well to go slamming hard into whoops because you can bottom it out pretty quickly even with this we did a correct moto revolve with the revolve control on this bike and so this bike is dialed and amazing and awesome now but it came actually really quite good with the Explorer 48 4 I don't have any major complaints on that because it's easy to service it's an it's an easy fork to tune doesn't do anything bad so the Explorer 48 fork is definitely a good quality fork for these front ends by WP it's nice that these bikes also come with a headlight so you can extend some of those rides later into the dark so I like that they do also come with hand guards as you can see the hand guards are flag style hand guards they're not super there's not super strong so they do offer a little bit of protection from your levers but it's not like it's not like a ton of protection there's some aftermarket hand guards that are probably better but these actually are serviceable and I use these until I break them off and sometimes I never do break them off because they do then and they do flex a little bit so they offer a little bit they offer some definite protection for your hands and they offer a little bit of protection for your levers as well a few years ago KTM and Husqvarna redesigned where the radiator how the radiators bolt up to the side and how these how these radiator fender their radiator flares attached and so they actually have this design so I don't think it's that crucial anymore to have radiator guards these radiator guards that come on the bike are a lot stiffer than that used to be and they do the job pretty well and I just think that this design is good enough that you probably don't need a nap market radiator guard so that's a really good thing the Huskies tend to be a little bit more money than the KT ends and that's partly because they'll give you a couple upgraded parts these triple clamps are these are billet aluminum triple clamps that are really really nice and this is one of the things that you're paying a little bit more because a lot of the KTMs have just like a forged aluminum like if you've got a KTM 300 xcw this would just be a forged aluminum part right here whereas this is billet on the Husky so that's one of the things that you're getting for your little bit of extra money it's just some upgraded parts right there another thing that you get for paying a little bit extra money for the Husky is you get a skid plate from the factory so they do give you a skid plate here which is a plastic skid plate bolts on really nicely but the problem is it doesn't come down here and cover the linkage and you'll notice I've smashed this linkage on a rock or log right here so what you really are going to need is a skid plate or some sort some type of a linkage guard that comes back down over the linkage right here to protect this all the way the pipes that they put on the bikes are actually pretty good and I don't ever I don't feel like you're getting enough bang for the buck by putting an aftermarket pipe on the bike in order because I just don't think it adds a ton of performance so I leave that I leave these pipes on because they're very very good until I bend that up really a lot and this one we haven't bent it up very much so I'm pretty happy about that since this is the Sweepstakes bike so that's good I've got no complaints with that I do have some complaints though with the silencers you can see back here the silent serve this is not a forest service approved spark arrested silencer so in order for you to ride this bike I don't have one sitting here in order for you to take this bike legally up into the forests and in the mountains you're gonna have to put a spark arrestor on it so that's not ideal I think that this bike even though they say oh it's igneel closed course race bike let's just put a spark arrestor on this so the we can so that we don't have to do that in the aftermarket as we keep moving back here we noticed that the T the husky has linkage right here so this is an advantage for some people other people think it's a disadvantage because this is but this is a bike that's going to be crawling over logs and rocks and things like that so it does have this it does have the linkage hanging down but the cool thing about that is with husky you do get the linkage here and there's a lot of people that really really like the feel and the tuned ability of the bike that has link like this so it's kind of cool that you've got this and you've got the linkage in the Huskie line in the te line and you've got the PDS in the in the KTM line so you can kind of pick your poison on these te 300s you're gonna have a linkage down here which is which is pretty cool for a lot of those a lot of those riders back here we've got Magura brakes so I don't have any problem with it with the Magura brake on the rear I did put an oversize brake pedal up on this bike because husky and KTMs don't they have kind of a really small little brake pedal and so I went with an oversize brake pedal here I think it was from inderal engineering and I like that but the Magura foot brake and the rear brake works totally fine for me I've got zero problems with that I have just enough feel with that to make it work and and that is totally fine with me not that this is something that other bikes don't have but they do they do make it really easy to adjust the chain tension back here with your chain blocks so they've got this set up really nice a lot of bikes do that but this is just something that I'm pretty comfortable with in order to you know adjust my chain tension and things that have that nature the husky bikes have a composite subframe that's this part that comes back this whole part of the back of the bike here the subframe is composite and I think that's one of the reasons that this bike ends up being about seven to ten pounds heavier than its KTM counterpart but there there is a good handle right here for lifting on and off stands and for for you know shifting your back tire around on the trail so that's that's nice that they have this I wish some of the other bikes had that then one thing I'm not super I'm not super excited about is how this side piece comes off it's the entire it's the entire side piece I'd like to see a smaller cover here for the airbox looks like I need to clean that filter out from the last ride before this bike is given away but I'm not a super fan of how this whole thing comes comes off so I mean you get you get better at it that is see that's not even there it's just too big of a piece I feel like because this one isn't in C this is part of my cart of issues usually like while Kyle if you weren't the okay there now we've got it and snapped in or all the snaps in yes I just think that could be a lot easier if it wasn't this big massive piece as you're probably aware of these TPI bikes are oil and fuel injected so this is where you put your oil and you can just kind of put your bottles right down in here there's an oil reservoir on there that lasts you somewhere I don't know how many tanks have guests maybe maybe five tanks of gas I've never actually tried to put it to the test I just looked down on the reservoir and see how see if I've got plenty of fuel or plenty to oil in there and then I'll top that off every couple of rides this is kind of what I do just kind of peel back my my bar pad here these these Huskies come with a pretty decent trail come trail computer here which tells your speed count your hours and account your distance it's got a trip meter on that and I really think that's a good feature that way I don't have to install an hour meter and it's good enough that you know you can count your trips on that thing so I like that these Huskies will typically also have a map switch which blue which lets you select from really good running bike to really crappy running bike I seriously have never wanted to run on the super crappy setting it's supposed to be for better traction or whatever but I didn't even I put this bike together actually and I didn't even wire up the map switch because I honestly thought think it's a waste because all the map switches that I've seen on these Huskies before like I said there's one good map switch that makes the bike scream and then there's one crappy map switch their lamp setting that makes the bike run like garbage these two e300 eyes have a six-speed transmission that has actually got some pretty interesting spacing between the gears and this is one of the thing that sets it apart from a lot of the other bikes out there is first gear is actually quite low second gear is is kind of right is just above that and then third gear there's a big gap between second and third gear to get up into the higher gear so it's a wider ratio transmission so first gear is really low second gear is also pretty low and then third gear you kind of catch up to some of the other bikes third fourth fifth six so it's got an interesting transmission that a lot of people really really like it's got about a two and a half gallon tank here so you can actually do a pretty decent range on these bikes the EFI portion of this bike makes it a little bit more fuel efficient but not drastically more fuel efficient I think part of the reason why it's more fuel efficient is it's not just dumping the stuff out the overflow and the other thing is when you lay the bike down on the ground say you're in a situation where you don't have a place that you can use the kickstand which happens to me all the time and when you lay the bike over you don't have to reach down and shut your fuel off because there's it doesn't leak when you tip it over so I like that these bikes come with ODI lock-on grips that actually just lock on to the bar right down here with the torques on this side and then on the throttle side it's actually part of your throttle assembly so these are really easy to take on and off I installed some aftermarket bar ends on this one that I like to like to run just to kind of save the grips make them last a little bit longer but I do like the ODI slip-on grips that lock on here to the bar that's a nice touch as you can see the bike comes with ProTaper grips on here this is a little bit higher of a rise for me so it takes a little bit of getting used to but a lot of people really do like these protei protein bars because they've got just maybe the right amount right amount of flex and feel so that's it that's a nice thing I don't know how well you can see this but you can actually move the bars forward in the triple clamps right here so this is an empty hole right there and I've moved the bars forward and that helps the bike to feel a little bit more roomy to me and some of the bikes have that some of them don't I'm glad that these triple clamps give you that option we talked about the headlight this husky actually comes with a tail light so this isn't a brake light but you'll be able to see when it comes on as you notice the lights will stay on for a little bit after you shut off the bike and then it'll shut off right now something didn't know the way that KTM and husky Dumont designs these swing arms is there's a tab right here and there's another tab right here that holds this chain guide on to onto the onto the bike and it's just built right here into the frame I've gotten to the point where I'm starting to run these these tab protectors here you can get them from bulletproof designs you can get them from inderal engineering I think and KTM and Husky also has a power part for that I'm starting to run these on all of my bikes now just because these are easy to tear off if you're going in some really nasty rocky terrain these tabs you can damage those tabs and that's not a good thing so you might want to put one of these aftermarket guards on there same thing on the other side I almost always use a rear disc guard I didn't own this bike because I wasn't gonna be riding it that often and I just needed to save a little bit of money but a rear disc guard over on the other side is also very very good protection for these things here's one aspect of the Husky that's super annoying to me notice your clicker here for high speed and low speed on the Rick on the shock you can't actually get in here and adjust this unless you take this plastic off so you've got to remove this bolt and then pull the plastic off just to get to this high speed and low speed you can kind of do it a little bit if you get in here because it's a brass screw if you pull this all the way over you can kind of get a screwdriver in here to do your low-speed clicker but your high speed clicker which is a 17 millimeter 17 millimeter nut here that's nearly impossible to really do and count your terms unless you pull this off all they had to do is put a cutaway right here so you can get in and to use that that's a whiff and it's it bugs me so bad and all the carburetor bikes people will play with these auxilary Springs here and they'll put different springs in for you know to have the power valve come fully open at a different rpm on the CPI bikes they don't want you playing with that so just something to keep in mind don't play with this the bikes run phenomenal the way that they're set and I just wouldn't mess with that so now we've kind of gone in front to back we've talked about some of the main features on the bike what's it like living with the bike because I've been living with these TPI buycks now for quite a while this one I've owned for um well it's been six months that I've owned it and I've got another one out there that just happens to be the orange color which we won't talk about too much right now but what is it like living with these TPI bikes here's the thing this bike actually runs a little better than the orange bike out there this bike has a smoothness to it that the orange one just doesn't just the way the motor runs and I've noticed every motor runs a little bit different that's the same thing with the carburetor bikes as well as these TPI bikes they don't all run the same generally speaking these TPI bikes run as good or better as any carburetor I've ever been around but that's not always the case these bikes are very slow to warm up they're very cold-blooded and I think it's because they run so lean as far as fuel to oil mixture and fuel to air mixture when they are starting out and I think KTM does that because this bike is here to pass emission standards in Europe that's why we have these bikes it's not because we were clamoring for fuel-injected bikes it's because of emission standards so in order for them to get the emissions down as far as they can this bike has to run super super lean especially in the low rpms and that means especially when it's warming up it takes a long time for it to warm up and there are times where you will have to hit the starter and it will start and run for a few seconds and then it'll die and then you'll have to hit starter again this time it probably won't do that because it's it's I think it's it was warm outside let's see of course so it won't show you what I want to show you but when the bike is cold sometimes these things don't really want to start that well and there have been times if it's super super cold that you have to pull the kick starter out now I am super glad that they have a kick starter and please please PLEASE KTM husky do not take the kick starters from us that is so terrible but these things are not perfect they run like a screaming eagle and another thing to mention about it is these TPI bikes run so crisp and so clean it kind of makes the 300 feel a little bit more like the 250 if I'm dead honest I think because I've had the 250 version of this and I've had the 300 versions of this and I've had it on the KTM side to 250 and 300 I almost feel like the 250 runs a little better and it's a little better suited than the 300 is I'm not taking anything away from this I'm just saying that I think that these feel more like a 250 to me because some of that bottom end is kind of gone I still think this is a fantastic bike for the tricky nasty stuff because I've been taking this one and mike 18300 on the nasty stuff but some of that bottom end is just kind of lost in the weeds because of the efi now I'm hoping that KTM or husky Husqvarna in this case Husqvarna will give us the ability to tune these bikes and select some actual usable map switches that aren't just the garbage ones that come on these bikes like on and off so that's what it's like to live with these things these things if you haven't written one of these things and and here's the thing these these fuel-injected bikes are gonna save two strokes they're gonna save two strokes because they won't go away because of emissions and also there's a bunch of you out there that have not experienced a truly tuned two-stroke carburetor and so if you've never had a two-stroke that was tuned properly this bike is going to rock your world because now you're gonna be on a bike that runs nearly perfect I'm not saying it runs perfect but it really they'll run most the time they'll run nearly perfect and so that's going to explode your brain it has some time for me because it might look I don't have to tune this bike at all and it runs near perfect not perfect but it is near perfect so that's why it's going to save two strokes is because the image thing is people are not gonna we're still going to be able to buy him and number two so many people are gonna be like oh this is what I've been missing on a two-stroke this is a properly tuned two-stroke in the same way that the fuel injection you know kind of opened the eyes of a lot of people on four strokes it's doing the same thing here so overall this is a killer bike any of you that buy this bike are probably going to fall in love with it immediately if you were outside the weight range for this bike it meaning if you're outside of the 150 to 180 range you're probably gonna need to get the bike re sprung for your weight so that it has the proper amount of sag and the forks and the shock and hold you up properly so keep that in mind but there's just not a ton to gripe on yeah I don't like the fact that it's cold blooded yeah I don't love the maguro front brake as much as I love the the bramble brakes but overall this sucker is very good I did have a problem with the brakes on this guy at the beginning I had to reply replace the brakes completely because the front brake just the front brake and the rear brake I think it was the rear brake too they would not grab at all there was something wrong with the brake pads from the beginning I'm not gonna fault husky for that because it was a they were a Brembo pad actually and I think they just had got some oil on him or something and they would never clean out so I had to replace the brakes so anyway it's a every once in a while you will have something that you have to do on on a bike like that this is a fantastic bike and I'm super excited that this is one of the bikes that we gave away you're probably watching this after the giveaway but just in case you aren't this is this is one of the giveaway bikes that we that we did this year so pretty stinkin sweet bike and if you have one or if you're on the fence dude climb off the fence these things are pretty sweet I don't think it letting down if you like these videos please remember to subscribe to the channel you can support us by going to patreon and sending a monthly tip amount you can also use the links down in the description that helps me a ton if you use those links down in the description to buy your parts or even for your amazon shopping that would help me out a ton okay we'll see you in the next video guys

Channel: Dirt Bike Channel

Views: 156,967

Rating: 4.9181962 out of 5

Keywords: enduro, motocross, dirtbike, ktm 2016, ktm motorcycles, shootout, ktm, range, erzberg, graham jarvis, johnny walker, best dirtbike, 125, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, 525, exc, sx, how to, 2 stroke, 4 stroke, video, review, husqvarna

Id: KJtd-90MuNc

Length: 21min 35sec (1295 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2019