Vintage CB

This place is closed because Jeremy Frombach is a scammer. He has taken in several bikes w/​cash deposits, never completed the work & never refunded money. He has numerous lawsuits against him, verifiable by doing a court search as well as googling his name. He has now closed his second shop & is opening another one under a different name. He should be investigated.

My experience with Jeremy Frombach was not good. Friendly guy, and seemingly on the up and up, but it all ended up being a scam.
I filed a lawsuit in small claims court for the $ 4,000 deposit I put down to have him rebuild a CB350 for me. This dragged on for over two years with continual excuses, and ultimately, no bike. I won the suit, because he just didn’t show, but getting him to pay is another story.
If you’re having trouble with him now, in whatever guise his shop maybe using, or whatever location he’s now doing business — file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. That may be more helpful than filing a lawsuit because it’s more difficult to collect.
I’m from out-​of-​state and that makes collecting and dealing with Jeremy that much harder. Take this as a lesson learned.

I love older bikes, I like how they look and how they sound. I also am not a mechanic, which is why this shop is really great.
I had bought an older bike a few years ago for $ 1200. I then had to put in an additional $ 1000 to make it street legal. In the mean time, it sat in my backyard while I had to track down the right parts for it. (I didn’t know that finding parts for old bikes can be a real bitch).
This shop does it right. If you like older bikes, they take care of what is crappy about them. They find it for you, they clean it, replace what needs replacing, test it thoroughly and then they hand it off to you.
Thanks to Jeremy and his team I have my dream bike.
I get thumbs up from people all the time.
I think some of the reviews are a little unfair because people don’t realize what goes into getting an old honda. Vintage Honda CB does all the heavy lifting.
It took a while to get my bike, but it was completely worth it. When it comes down to it, you don’t want to rush something like this.

Listing this one as 5 stars because I love this shop and don’t think some of the other reviews give Jeremy & company a fair shake.
I bought a ’72 Honda CB350 from Jeremy and his crew a little over a year ago. From the very start, Jeremy’s been a great guy to do business with. It’s obvious that he loves the bikes he sells and loves sharing that with other people. On the night that I bought my bike, Jeremy took my wife and I out for a beer at the bar next door. We had a great time and appreciated the gesture of sharing some drinks to celebrate our purchase.
Since then, my bike and I have been back to the shop for the regular maintenance, and to work out a few kinks that arise from owning a 40 year old piece of Japanese engineering. The crew has always done a great job addressing whatever comes up at a very reasonable price.
I’m not saying this is a perfect motorcycle shop — it isn’t. But really, is there a perfect motorcycle shop? If the only complaint I can come up with after a year of working with these guys is that sometimes the repair takes longer than anticipated, I’m happy. The guys at Vintage Honda CB may lack a little bit of the organized refinement you may find elsewhere, but these guys are the real deal. They do exactly what they say they do – expertly fix, restore, and sell vintage Honda motorcycles.
If you’re looking for a great vintage Honda and possess the wisdom to buy one from a shop that knows the ins and outs of these amazing machines, don’t give a second thought to giving Jeremy your business.

Great experience. I bought one of the rebuilt bikes, a cb550, it’s like owning a brand new 1970s honda! After my first 100 miles I took it in for a check up, chain adjustment, breaks, tire pressure, etc and a suspension adjustment for my weight. I have put a mother 300 miles on the bike and have got used to it now (it feels a lot different than a modern sport bike), I am having a lot of fun. If you think you want a vintage bike, you probably will like them. Go get it from vintage honda cb.
Peter McD

I bought my 1973 CB450 over a year ago from Vintage Honda CG and Jeremy helped me pick out a gem! He was on the lookout for me and when the right one came up, he swooped it up, called me up, and started tearing it apart and fixing it up. I’ve had it for over a year and it’s amazing that this thing is 40 years old. It’s a thrill to ride!

When you go to get a restored bike, especially a vintage Honda CB, This is the place to go. Jeremy, Kevin and his guys at Vintage Honda CB are top notch. They know what they are doing and if you want it done right, have them do it. They helped me with a friends bike who wanted me to learn to ride. He got the bike but I got to learn a little bit while taking care of the bike they restored for him. They taught me the ins and out of a Honda CB 450 and were patient with me. I wanted to learn and they gave me that chance to learn. I took riding classes elsewhere and eventually got my M1 License but they told me about the things you don’t learn in a class. If you want a bike right away, go to sign the papers at a dealership. If you want a piece of classic history, go talk to Jeremy.

Absolutely love the finished product. Although there was a slight delay, Jeremy was always easy to contact and the bike was far better than I hoped. I even had an independent guy check it out when he put a battery tender plug on and he though it was great.

Bike is still not worth what I paid for it.
(I removed old review, was written up after a long frustrating week of having to work on it myself.)

Jeremy is a super cool guy, first time buying a vintage and made me feel very comfortable with the purchase. Took a little longer then expected but these are being built and restored from top to bottom so you do need to be patient with your build unless you are buying one that has already been built, you are not going home with a bike that day. Staff is great and super welcoming. Would definitely get another bike built at this shop again.

It might be a long review, but I think it will help you make the right decision. (also make sure to read the other reviews that don’t show up —
)
Part 1:
My review isn’t based on the work they’ve done because they actually never got around to even touching/​looking at the bike.
I spoke to Jeremy over 3 weeks ago about him restoring my 74 CB 750. He had his driver pick up my bike for a $ 25 fee 3 weeks ago today. Thinking that i’d have a good experience with them and that I would have them do all the work I pre paid the guy and handed him a $ 50 so they could deliver the bike once they finished working on it.
3 weeks later and they haven’t even looked at the bike to tell me what needs to be done — I communicated with Jeremy on many occasions and every time i speak to him something has come up. On march 22^nd I got a Facebook message from him saying «I’m sorry, it was a perfect storm this week. We had 3 bikes come back under warranty and one of my guys ended up in the hospital so I was short handed to boot. We haven’t fooled with your bike yet, I’m sorry for the delay. I will have it looked at and an answer for you as soon as possible» so being a good customer I decided to brush it off and give them a few more days… a week later I contact him because he never got back to me and I mentioned to him that the bike he had was the only means of transportation for me and that I needed the bike back — he seemed to care all of a sudden and said «i wish you would have told me sooner, we would’ve gotten back to you asap — ill get on it now»…I proceeded to be a patient customer once again and wait for a call back. Here we are 3 weeks later (6 weeks total) — I called him today at 12:45 and he told me he would have his guy call me in 15 minutes — its 6:25pm and no call. So at this point who knows where my bike is, luckily I know exactly where the shop is and have recorded conversations (I did this based on all the negative reviews) in case shit hit the fan.
I really wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt EVEN after one of my friends had a negative experience with them.
Part 2:
The bike finally got done almost 7 weeks later. They gave me a huge laundry list of things they’d do to the bike which included «Fix the odomoter/​speedomoter, new chain, new seal» which never got fixed. After receiving the bike i rode it for about 2 weeks and decided to take it back to them so they could fix the seal (I was told the seal would be in a few days after I picked up the bike so I waited two weeks before I came in, given the past experience I had with them) and odometer — i left the bike there for 4 days and it was never touched and was fed up with it so i stopped by and took it to another shop to get done. All in all i paid almost 2000 $ and got about 75% of the work done after about 9 weeks. I didn’t bother asking for a refund on the balance for the work they never got done since I knew it would be a loss and a waste of time. All they really did was rewire the bike (which i was really happy about, the guy that deals with this task at the shop is funny and willing to get his part of the job done as quick as possible as hes aware of the issues others have had with this business).
I purchased a second bike, a 1973 CB 750 that i had dropped off on a Tuesday (right before memorial Day). That day Jeremy wasnt in so I waited a few days to hear from him and got no response so i took some time off from work to stop by the shop to make sure he was aware that i wanted the bike done. He gave me a rough estimate and I took that as a «we will get it done». I stopped by a week later and the bike hadn’t been touched so I decided to pull it and take it to the other shop, he didn’t seem to really care which put things in perspective.
all in all, I should have followed my gut instinct. if you have weeks and weeks if not months to kill and don’t mind not getting calls back and not knowing in what state your bike is in — this place is for you. i had a simple service job that took 2 months to get done. really disorganized and it seems like they take on more than they can really handle with the man power they have.
do yourself a favor and do some research on other shops.
this isn’t a bashing post because I’m sure they are capable of providing a service to some that have the time to kill and money to waste.
happy hunting.
I just realized that Jeremy, the owner made a remark in regards to lien papers I asked for help on. He mentioned that he is the «legal lien holder» in a facebook and Unilocal message that was sent to me a few weeks back. HAH! Bikes registered to me.
Edit: 11÷11÷13
In response to Jeremys edited response to this post. I was naïve, stupid and completely unaware as to where to take my bike — which is why when I found a new place I pulled it and took it over to them. stop editing your replys and drop it.

Cool story bro, maybe some of the people who are smart enough to go on here would care to read your unwanted facebook conversation with me where your cursing at me and telling me this guy who obviously worked at your shop was an «independent contractor». Eh, lets just let them read your FB comments you pretty much hung yourself already anyways and it would be more enlightening to any person brave enough to use your sorry excuse for a shop for any mechanical needs for their Honda CBs.
Conversation started Monday
12:18pm
Jeremy Arthur Vandelay
dude what are you doing bashing me on Unilocal?I had nothing to do with your bike whatsoever, you didn’t even pay me anything. I had to sit there and referee this fight between you and Bo, I did everything I could to help you and you’re bashing? What the fuck is your problem?
12:31pm
(This is true, the original deal was for me to pay his «independent contractor» who was at his place of business when I got there 2000 $ and then pay him 400 $ after the job was done, hey guess what Ahole, you never finished the job and when I called you 4 months later to tell you this employee of yours wasnt giving me back my property you told me to call the cops and get my bike back. Yea real helpful there Jeremy
Aaron Lawson
I’ll tell you what. You get the parts back from your old employee and I’ll take the review down. I’ll email you the list of the parts he’s holding hostage and went give back. The parts are probably worth 300 $ to $ 400. You don’t get the parts back and the review stays up and you’ll be seeing me in court. I’m sorry but I brought this project to your shop. It wasn’t my choice for you to have YOUR employee take the bike to his house to work on it. You’ve given me absolutely no help on anything with this bike, had you been a responsible owner and employer and gotten the bike back from him once he was no longer your employee we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
(I’m giving him an option, to either A. get my parts back from this idiot he hired but doesnt want to deal with obviously or B. keep his negative reviews on Unilocal.)
12:31pm
Aaron Lawson
Won’t give back
1:14pm
Jeremy Arthur Vandelay
dude you made a deal with him totally exempt from me. You did it to save $ 1200 on the build because we charge 80/​hour, not 50. That is a deal strictly between you and him. If you had handed me the money, you may have a point.
Why are you even going after me anyway? Why are you not suing him? The answer is because you know he has nothing, and you think because I have a shop you have something to gain from coming after me. This is bullshit dude, and you know it is. If you were being honest about it, you’d be suing him. None of the work happened at my shop, you and I made no agreement whatsoever, and you never paid me a dime. you’re just being ridiculous and you’re desperate to recover what you lost, and you don’t care who pays for it.
If you would have asked for my help in some way, I would offer it to you. I’m an extremely fair, reasonable person. You didn’t ask me for anything, but instead chose to do some passive aggressive bullshit by going on Unilocal,which is what all of you LA fucks do. You don’t try to resolve a problem, you go on the fucking internet and bitch about it and then wonder why no resolution is met.
You’re free to waste your time and money with a pointless lawsuit. I don’t give a fuck about them, and you won’t win anyway because HELLO you didn’t pay me anything.
(He didnt get paid because he never finished the bike. After waiting for 5 months and the project not getting done why on earth would I ever trust anything to these idiots at this shop. I wouldnt trust these morons with a potato gun let alone my motorcycle again.) Oh by the way people of LA, he thinks your all idiots who cant resolve problems, real cute coming from the moron who wouldnt lift a finger to help me but recommended I called the cops on his ex employee to get my property back. Nice resolution bro
I’ll post the rest of this dudes FB messages to me in the next comments, read on if you want to have a laugh

I bought a 50 year old Honda Superhawk from Jeremy and I LOVE it! Did it take longer than I thought it would? Yes. Were there boogers that I had to deal with when it was done? Yes. Did it take me 2 months to get the title and crap figured out? Yes. IT’S A 50 YEAR OLD BIKE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
I love it and I have no beef with Jeremy and his shop. He was totally honest with me and worked hard to get the bike figured out. The bike runs great now and people go crazy when they recognize it for what it is.
You have to be patient or you have to buy a newer bike.

I wrote a 1-​star review of this place back in April. It was the business’s first review. The owner emailed me with a sob story about how I was ruining the livelihoods of himself and his mechanics and I took the review down. Eight months later, I find that a bunch of customers in the exact same boat have posted on Unilocal but found their reviews banished to the ‘filtered’ section. Despite the Unilocal rating, the business scores an ‘F’ with the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau and appears in online Scam Alerts. I can’t help feeling that if I’d had the balls to keep my review up, a few dozen people would have been saved a lot of misery.
I should count myself lucky that I did, in fact, receive a ‘restored’ bike from Vintage Honda CB, albeit two months late. But from day one, the recharging system didn’t work — the result of a fried and blackened stator coil that they had either failed to identify or forgotten to replace. They also forgot to include any fuses (or fuse plugs) in the new wiring harness, resulting in the thing catching fire when the cheap starter button shorted out. They forgot to put any fluid in the front forks so the gaiters were torn to ribbons. They forgot to do even a cursory safety check and didn’t notice that the swingarm bushing was missing — something I discovered when the back end started to detach from the bike on the freeway. The sandblasted and highly polished metal work, while beautiful on day one, rapidly turned into a rusty eyesore. Brake cables cracked wide open.
My dad has been restoring vintage bikes for fifty years. I’ve grown up with old bikes. So have my friends. We’re not new to this. The idea that we’re just not used to old machinery is BS. A bike in such a state would be acceptable for $ 2,000. For $ 5,500, it’s sickening.
Be warned that the owner will never say sorry. He will never accept responsibility. He will never accept fault. He will whine and cry in countless emails like a spoilt teenager. He will take wild offense at any suggestions or advice as to how to improve his business. He will exploit any sympathy and decency you have to get away with doing squat. He will offer to have the bike returned to sit around in his shop for a year while the same mechanics who made the mistakes get around to fixing it. He will never, never offer any kind of refund.
I expect my review to end up in the hidden section of Unilocal like all the other real stories from those who’ve suffered. Just as I expect to receive a petulant rant from the owner in my in-​box in a couple of days. But I can’t get rid of the nagging guilt that I should have warned people about this place a long time ago.

Make sure you read the filtered reviews before doing business here.
I was originally pretty unhappy with the work that was done on my bike. It wasn’t that they did anything WRONG necessarily, but they cheaped out on a bunch of things and it seemed like they rushed and sort of slapped a few things together. One of my pet-​peeves in life is half-​assed shit. I’d rather wait a few extra days (and yes, even spend a few more bucks) to have something done right than get sloppy results.
More importantly, I was upset by the disorganization, and overall lack of communication. If they had just called me (or answered when I called them) this could have all been avoided. That being said, I’ll admit that I could have been better at communicating with them too.
So that happened…
And then, the other day, this happened…
I randomly ran into the owner Jeremy. We had a long heart to heart about the work they did on my bike. My motorcycle was there and I was able to show him exactly why I was upset. He listened to me gripe, explained his perspective on a few things and then, to my surprise, he took full responsibility. He offered to make it right. It turns out we originally had a series of miscommunications that led to some misunderstandings.
After talking with Jeremy, it seems like he and his crew are making some real changes to get their customer service up to snuff. I really hope they pull it off, because I think they’re good guys and the mechanics actually do have skills and know these old bikes.
With a few tweaks to the customer service/​organizational side of things, and just a bit more professionalism overall, I think this could be a great shop. Just answer the phone, guys!

I had placed an order for a 1970’s Honda CB 350 on August 31^st, 2012. I met with Jeremy and put a $ 1000 deposit for it to be built and ready by December. Although a couple days later I had looked on Unilocal for reviews on the shop and wasn’t to pleased with a lot of the them, so I had asked him if he could have it built by the end of October to be safe. For a sec I was worried that I fell victim to a scam but I decided to be patient and hope for the best. By the first week of November I received an email and a phone call that my bike was ready to be picked up. It’s been a week now and I am totally in love with this bike! SO much fun to ride. Thanks so much Jeremy and the mechanics at Vintage Honda CB! You have a very happy customer :-)

This comment is long overdue.
In March, I bought a bike from this shop. It wasn’t a bike they restored, just had bought in unrestored and unchanged.
They were nice enough to deliver to my house (30 miles) because I told them I didn’t know how to ride yet.
I spent the next 3 months learning, getting the hang of riding safely. Getting my gear together, this bike was the perfect starter bike (73 Honda cb500)
The few times I’ve had questions, I’ve called up Jeremy, and he’s been quick to answer them all.
7 months later, I’ve had some shifting issues come up, and of course my first thought is to call. They have been amazing, brought it in, and can’t wait to get back to riding.
All in all, this shop is a great place to find a 70s Honda.

Alright people.
I go to this shop often and i know the mechanics and staff there very well.
I bought my bike from this place over a year ago.
Here’s the thing. If you’ve owned old bikes before or old cars (im talking 40 odd years old) then you’re going to know there is nothing you can do to guarantee it will work first time. There is nothing you can do to guarantee that the parts will arrive on time. There’s pretty much nothing you can guarantee at all. So what you’re looking at in a shop is not how they are when they sell you the bike but how they are when something inevitably goes wrong with the machine that has been clanking around for 40 years. Come on… most of you people here are younger than the bikes you own and yet you expect it to come straight off the ‘dealers lot’.
My bike has had some issues and Jeremy and his staff have been very courteous to me explaining the issues AND explaining the timeline of the issues. If they think they will run into time constraints they have previously lent me loaner bikes. Its not a factory line… its an artistry.
I understand this… i own and have owned a 1970 chevy nova, a 1970 ford ranchero, a 1974 plymouth duster and a 82 GS450. If you own a prius and you come in trying to buy into ‘vintage’ because you think its cool… think again. You have to live with these bikes… they are old machines. They require tweaking, working on, upkeep… love attention and most of all patience. Think about how your bloody prius will look in 40 years time.
Yes there are some time-​line issues at this shop but ive never been to a mechanics where they HAVENT had time line issues. Im 99% sure that all the whiney people on here could grow some balls and go to the store and get their problems resolved. The shop is CLOSED on Sundays and Mondays… like all bike shops (anyone who doesnt know this is showing themselves to be new to bikes completely). Go on a saturday. Go on a tuesday. Go on a wednesday. Stop being a bitch and get your problem sorted.

Great shop! Moving from vintage sports cars to vintage bikes and this was the place that reminded me of all the old shops I used to hang out in to get my cars fixed when it was beyond me. Great set of mechanics (Thanks Kevin and Chris), great vibe, and a fun owner Jeremy. Bought a 75 CB 400 Four as my first ever bike and its been reliable and fun. Any questions I had as a newbie were patiently answered and lots of great advice given. Also fun just talking about old cars and bikes. Wrung the bike out for a month as advised and returned for service. Small gripe list quickly taken care of, throttle and other linkages tweaked and now I can’t stop smiling.
Great place to get a bike with character that’s fun and reliable to ride… and gets a lot of comments and thumbs up.
The place to go!

I have had my old Honda CB500/​4 for a long time, over 20 years.
I remember when… I could not get any parts for the bike, aftermarket or otherwise, easily anyway. These guys have a ton of stuff and they know old Honda Motorcycles.