My Experience with Strictly Performance Motorsports (LONG READ)
 

First off, I would like to make a disclaimer that this is MY personal experience with Strictly Performance Motorsports and Robert Barth. There are no other intermediate parties involved. I personally made the decision to take my Camaro there back in 2006. And believe it or not, after so many years of dealing with bullshit from SPM, I FINALLY got my car back last month. Rob has had possession of my vehicle for FOUR YEARS!! ...and of course, it is in absolutely horrific condition.

And to make it perfectly clear, I do NOT owe him ANY money whatsoever.

Some of you may have seen my car around his shop at the shop's previous location in Van Nuys. It was a black Z28 with a VFN Sunoco Hood and Hawaii License Plates. Strictly Performance butchered my Camaro, including my Forced Induction kit, Fuel system, stock motor, transmission, and front clip... along with a countless number of issues that I am currently addressing the more I dig into my car.

For one, he did not know how to tune my car, which resulted in blowing my first motor, of which he took zero responsibility for. I fronted the money to have a new motor built... While the car was down, I had the transmission rebuilt (took 3 times to get it "right") and "an upgraded" fuel system (where he used low pressure lines running along the exhaust pipes." The car then sat for months on end OUTSIDE of the shop, further deteriorating the paint. By no means was my car in showroom condition, but it didn't have any fading, damaged moldings, dried out weatherstripping since it had been garaged prior to its SP experience.

After Rob was evicted from his old shop, he would not tell me where my car was located so I can just come to pick it up... I had tried contacting him for 8 whole months and still got no direct answer nor did he allow me to pick up my car. So I had no choice but to report the car stolen. The cops found the car at Lou's Performance in Sun Valley with no front end... Lou's Performance tried fixing the "loading" ACCIDENT that it was in... But Rob wrecked the fenders, bumper, and sunoco hood and had it replaced with China aftermarket shit and a stock RED hood that was sprayed black...

There are much more detail to my nightmare of an experience, including using ALL silicone for all my flanges instead of actual gaskets, fried PCM, dented rims, and stealing numerous parts (Nick Williams 90mm TB, SLP 85mm MAF, used Hooker LT Headers, Stainless Borla Catback, turbo log manifold). I have tried dealing with Rob and he is impossible to work with. Throughout the FOUR YEARS, I got less than 10 calls back from him regarding my car. The work he did on my car is NOT worth what I paid for. I just hope someone else does not make the same huge mistake that I made.

Since there's so much more to explain, I will just let the before and after pictures speak for themselves for now:

Dayumm!!!
I would say I hope you get everything settled, but after reading this post and how long it took you to get the car back in it's unfortunate condition, it seems unlikely. You could give small claims court a try...

BTW, do you mean HI by "Island Grown"? If so, what's up bra, I was born and raised in Hilo, HI.

Yes, sir. Born and Raised on Oahu. Right on, got some 808 Roots in here. Like so many of us, got a lotta family on outer islands too.

Rob didn't want anything settled. He gave me the runaround for basically 4 years and ripped me off. He said that he finished my car, but it just so happened that it doesn't run and would have to hold onto it... BUT he wouldn't work on my car because I wasn't a priority in comparison to paying customers. WTF??? I ALREADY PAID!!! and did NOT owe him money!

What a POS, I can vouch for what the car looked like prior to it being at Rob's. There's no fucking excuse for the type of "work" that was done while it was there.

That sucks.

So what's the plan right now with the car? Hopefully you are still going to get it finished. Let me know if you need any help building the car.

Unfortunatly its not the first story ive heard like this about them. Glad I decided not to go with them when I was looking at stuff for my car. Sorry to see your car like that, I assume you are taking some sort of legal action?....I hope you are at least.

Well, the more I dig into the car, the more shit I find wrong with it. Rob always said, "if the customer has a problem, they should have come to me so we can take care of it." Well, that's some bullshit... The only thing that happened was that I got ripped off, and Rob made zero effort to make ANYTHING right, nor did he offer to take care of any of my missing parts. If the cops did not find my car at Lou's Performance, he would have never told me that the car was in an accident and then try to cover it up.

That is just terrible. I'm glad I never ended up taking my Camaro there.

Dude, that fucking sucks!! ... Like I told you last year, "The only way your gonna get it back is if you report it stolen." Hey, what he say to you about the accident he got into with it? ... I'd love to hear that story! lol!

sorry to hear about ur camaro.spm:bigun2: get sum

The passenger side front bumper support is pretty banged up. From what we could tell, nothing beyond the front wheels is damaged tho... besides the all the "custom" work that he did... Both of my front wheels are dented badly, and the rear driver's side tire was changed. He claims that it was in a "loading" accident when putting it onto a flat bed. But based on the damage that we could see, there is no way... The repair was shotty and they just banged it with a hammer and tacked it back together. I'll address that issue when I get the car running better.

Thanks, guys. I just want to give fair warning about Strictly Performance before anyone makes the same mistake that I did.

Oh yea... he also stole my HID kit... and my rear view mirror is missing!

Sucks to hear that. Rob has treated good since I knowned him. But many can't say the same and my condolences to them.


Btw what's up milky!!!!

dude this fucking sucks... the car was no where near this kind of condition the last time i had seen it...
this is a really shitty situation, but in all honesty i am glad you at least got your car back.
if i can help in any way, im down.

lol, so Shant and I were talking about this. Remember when he sent you a photo of someone elses camaro to prove that he had it and was in fair condition?

What up Jose?! ... I've been good. ... Didn't Rob tell you after you bought that camaro from him that you had a Spec 3 clutch in there and it turned out to be some crappy Chinese shit?lol!

Even if it was my car, it's no wonder there were no pictured of the front of the car.

Damn .. So why was it at Lous Performance? I'm guessing he was fixing the body work.

I guess that goes to show you well he treated you...