Flarespace Review: How We DIY’d our Sprinter Van Flares in 5 Steps

When I first saw the Sprinter van flares manufactured by Flarespace I totally fell in love. What a great way to get extra space in a short-wheelbase van. When we got our 144 wb Sprinter 4×4 van, I immediately knew that Flarespace flares would be our first major project.

Sprinter van Flarespace flares let you sleep sideways by adding two “bump-outs”, or flares, to the rear quarter panels. You have to cut two gigantic holes in the rear quarter panel and glue the flare in. Doing this adds over a foot of living space inside the van. You’ll end up with a bed length of 74″-79″, with a width of 60″. Pretty similar to a queen bed!

I knew space would be a premium in our 144 wb Sprinter van, which is why I contacted Flarespace to see if they wanted to work together on my project. For full transparency, they sent me two Sprinter van flares, the interior detailing kit, two trim rings and the Super FlyWeight Anti-Gravity Bed Panel System in exchange for an honest review.

SPOILER ALERT: We absolutely love the Flarespace flare and bed system. Neither of us can imagine van life without these products, and we’d highly recommend them to anyone looking to add more space in their campervan build.

Watch the video:

Why get Flaresapce Sprinter van flares?

Adding a driver side and passenger side flare to a campervan might seem like a big waste of money to some people. The Flarespace flares, interior kit and trim rings, plus the Super Fly Weight bed system will set you back almost $5,000 and even more if you get a professional installation.

Why not just buy a longer van?

We really wanted the short-wheelbase Sprinter van, the 144, as it’s easy to park, drive, maneuver and is better for off-roading. The smaller the wheelbase, the more rugged roads we could take on. Plus, coming from a Chevy Astro, the 144 wb van seemed big enough.

Some people will opt for the 170 wheelbase Sprinter, which does provide more space for a length-wise bed. However, at this point in my life, I didn’t feel like I needed such a long van.

Flarespace Sprinter van flares are perfect for sleeping sideways, or horizontally, across your van. This gives you additional space inside for your kitchen unit, bench seats, bathroom or whatever you want to install.

Sprinter van flares were the first thing I wanted in my van build.

Keep in mind that if you have two people sleeping sideways in a Sprinter van, one person will always have to crawl over another person to get out of bed. For some people, this is a definite “No”, where it’s not a big deal for me.

Choosing the Right Flarespace Flare and Window Combination

When you first look at the Flarespace website, you might be a little confused about which body flares to get for your van. Flarespace currently makes driver side and passenger side flares for several vehicles: Mercedes Sprinter vans, Ford Transits, Ram Promasters, Nissan NVs, Fiat Ducatos, Volkswagen Crafters and Ford E-Series vans.

Flares are automatically sold in pairs, but then you have a few choices. The driver side flare has more options because you aren’t constricted by the slider door. You’ll have to choose between regular and extended depth flares. The extended depth adds 1-2″ more to the length of your bed – better if you’re tall.

The passenger side flare only comes in the regular depth option to ensure the sliding door can open fully.

You’ll then need to select which window you want in your flares if any. Keep in mind that having an awning window on your sliding door side flare can be dangerous. If you accidentally leave the awning open, the sliding dor will hit it.

Here are the window options:

• Flarespace half-slider window
• Flarespace awning window
• Arctic Tern awning window
• No windows at all

We went with the half-slider These windows come with an awesome insulated, magnetized window shade by window for our Sprinter van, which is made by C.R. Lawrence. They also have a bug screen (as do the other shades) and are nicely tinted.

The Arctic Tern window is the only acrylic window you can get with your Flarespace flares. The others are made of glass.

Add-Ons We Got with our Flarespace Sprinter Van Flares

Along with the actual Flarespace flares themselves, we also decided to get a few add-ons to make the entire installation process easier for our Sprinter van.

Trim Rings

The first add-on I’m really glad we got were the trim rings. Trim rings provide a windowsill around your flare and give it a finished look. Trim rings are sold in pairs and are made of molded fiberglass meant to fit just inside your flare.

You can either paint them or wrap them with foam and fabric. We choose to paint-match them to our Sprinter van and flares.

Interior Finish Kit

Another add-on we received was the interior finish kit for our Sprinter campervan flares. This adds the perfect finishing touch to the inside of our flares, and was way better than going out and choosing the foam and fabric ourselves.

Here’s what you get the interior finish kit:

• gray Marathon fabric
• spray adhesive
• 1/4″ foam
• enough material to finish both of your flares

There are some other products you can purchase from Flarespace to complete your entire bed system, which includes cut-to-fit mattresses, bedding and wall paneling, but we decided to do our own.

DIY Flarespace Install in 6 Steps

We decided to do our own Flarespace flare installation on our Mercedes Sprinter 144 camper van. I did call around builders who install flares in the Portland, Oregon area, which were all charging upwards of $2,000-$4,000 for installation and paint. This would make an entire Flarespace kit around $10,000 for parts and install! Ouch! However, if you’re not comfortable with doing a DIY van build, this might be your only option.

This was Tom’s first time tackling a project of this nature and he did an incredible job. He is super handy and has been building stuff his entire life, which I’m sure contributed to the Sprinter van flare installation success.

#1 Make Sure the Flarespace Sprinter Van Flares Fit

Since making flares involves molds and isn’t a perfect process, it’s important to make sure they fit before you install Flarespace flares in your campervan.

When we fitted the flares by holding them up to our Mercedes Sprinter, we immediately noticed that the window holes on our flares didn’t match. One was for the half-slider and one was for the awning-style window. We wrote Flarespace, which quickly corrected the problem. Since we were located in Portland at the time, we were able to exchange one flare for the other at their manufacturing shop in the Clackamas area.

Both Flarespace flares fit our Sprinter campervan perfectly, so the next step was taking them to a professional auto body shop for painting.

#2 Paint Match Your Flarespace Flares

The next step in the flare install was getting the flares painted to match our van. After calling several body shops that said they don’t work on fiberglass, we finally found one called Precision Auto Body located in Beaverton, Oregon.

Painting both flares cost $750, and we also opted to have them paint our interior trim rings. The auto body shop completed the work in about five days with an excellent paint job.

The painters had to mix the paint, and it came out a little off, but not off enough to be a problem. The paint is glossy and gorgeous, and we were overall very happy with the finished product.

If you don’t want to pay a professional auto body shop to paint your body flares, Flarespace says they’ve had good luck with Rustoleum Truck Bed Liner spray can paint. 

#3 Cut Holes in Your Van

Yep, the next big step in a Flarespace installation is cutting a gigantic hole in your van’s rear quarter panel. This can seem daunting at first, but with the right tools and measurements, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Tom precisely measured the cutouts he’d make in our Mercedes Sprinter 144 and created an outline with blue tape. He then punctured the four corners with a drill so he’d have a place to put his jigsaw. Then, slowly but surely, he cut the holes.

After cutting, Tom filed off sharp edges and sprayed metal primer to prevent future rust.

#4 Glue the Flares into your Campervan

It might seem weird that glue is the only thing holding your body flares in place, but that’s what Flarespace says to do. Flarespace includes the glue when they send you the flares, which is a 3M adhesive. It’s a thick, black glue that you’ll use to line the flange.

I held the flare while Tom pushed it into place, then used long strips of blue tape to secure the piece until the glue had a chance to dry. We also added glue to the inside of the flange to prevent leaks.

Flarespace recommends the glue cure in 60 degrees, but we didn’t have that luxury in the fall in Portland, Oregon. We added bright and hot shop lights to the van’s interior to help keep the temperature up throughout the night.

And it worked! Even though temperatures dipped to the low 50s, the glue cured just fine.

#5 Finish the Flarespace flare interior

After the body flares and windows were installed, it was time to finish out the flare interior. As part of our partnership, Flarespace sent us an interior kit, which consists of thin foam insulation, light gray fabric and strong adhesive.

To install the interior kit, we sprayed down the inside of the flare with adhesive, then glued 1/4″ foam. Tom cut the foam to shape, then sprayed again and laid down the gray Marathon fabric, which we also had to cut to fit.

#5 Install the Windows

The last step of this process was installing the half-slider windows into the flares in our Mercedes Sprinter 144.

This was probably the easiest part of our Flarespace install. We made sure the drainage holes were pointed down, then screwed the windows in place. They were leak-free!

You can find detailed written instructions here for a DIY flare installation.

Installing the Super Fly Weight Anti-Gravity Bed Panel System

Flarespace has a new product out that’s an ultra-lightweight bed system. When I saw it on their website, I knew I wanted it for our Sprinter campervan. We are trying to keep our weight as low as possible so we can off-road a bit easier.

The Super Fly Weight Anti-Gravity Bed Panel System consists of two 30″ wide 1″ thick panels. Also included are six powder-coated bed rail brackets, 14-gauge sheet metal for structural support and all hardware you’ll need for installation.

These Flarespace bed panels are crazy light. I can easily pick them up and carry them around.

Here are the steps it took to install the Super Fly Weight bed system in our 144 wb Sprinter van. Keep in mind that Flarespace has written instructions on this process plus tons of YouTube videos we watched to ensure we got this right.

#1 Drill and Rivet Your Structural Steel in Place

As part of the Super Flyweight Flarespace bed system, you’ll get a long piece of structural steel. This long, flat piece of steel is what you’ll drill the bed brackets into. Using a rivet gun, you’ll rivet the structural steel to the van’s metal interior.

Don’t forget to spray Rustoleum into any newly drilled holes in your van to prevent rust.

#2 Cut and Install Rear Wall Quarter Panels and Trim Rings

For us to put our bed system in place, we had to cut and install 1/4″ Baltic birch rear panels. This step needs to happen to pinch the Flare trim rings in place and to also serve as an anchor point for the van bed’s hardware.

To cut our rear panel walls, we used paper template kits from Titan vans. If you don’t want to cut your own panels, you can purchase pre-cut wood panels from Titan vans as well.

The trims rings are an important part of this entire process. Premade trim rings cut down significantly on the time it would take us to finish out the van’s interior. Trim rings are cut wide to fit any type of furring you might do with your walls. This leaves space for extra installation.

Tom grinded and sanded the trim rings down to fit our particular wall thickness.

Flarespace trim rings are held in place using Baltic Birch wall paneling.

#3 Add the bed rail brackets

After the structural steel and wood back paneling was installed, we then added the two powder-coated bed rail brackets. This is where the two 30″ bed pieces will rest.

#4 Trim the bed panels

Like other Flarespace components, the fit of the products depends on your install and your particular van.

To fit both panels in the back of our van, we had to trim them down a bit to ensure an even fit. Then our bed was in and we were almost ready to sleep sideways in our Sprinter van! A huge step in our van build process.

Strengthening the Flarespace bed system

One thing we noticed about the Super Fly Weight Anti-Gravity Bed Panel System is that the panels bend and sag a bit under our weight. While this is fine for some people, we prefer a very firm bed.

Tom came up with a solution to strengthen the two panels.

He created a fiddle made out of Baltic birch for the front and back of the bed system that would act as structural support, and a way to hold our blankets in place.

Then he added a piece of metal and Baltic birch in between the two bed panels to act as a beam. Together, the fiddles and beam made a truly firm and fixed bed, one that doesn’t move around one bit.

We love that there are two independent panels, with means when one person moves, the other person doesn’t feel it.

The Verdict on Flarespace Sprinter Van Flares and Bed System

We have been really impressed with the quality of the Sprinter van flares from Flarespace, interior kit, trim rings and Super Fly Weight Anti-Gravity bed system. Tom, as an experienced craftsman and builder, is especially impressed and can’t imagine living in the van without them.

The body flares not only look amazing from the outside but provide more usable space inside our 144 wb Sprinter van.

I absolutely love the bed and think it’s the most comfortable I’ve ever slept in. We can sleep sideways with ease in our Mercedes Sprinter. I love that each of us has our own bed panel so that when one person moves, the other doesn’t really feel it.

Even when we’ve been invited to sleep inside at fancy resorts, we prefer to go out in the parking lot and sleep in the Sprinter van.

Over and over again, we talk about how much we love the Flarespace flares and bed system. Adding additional space in the living area of our Sprinter van was worth the hassle of cutting our van and installing the flare kit. We wouldn’t choose differently if we ever do a van build again.

Flarespace Sprinter van flares might not be right for you if you don’t want to crawl over another person to get out of bed. They also might not be right if you don’t want to spend quite a bit of money on your van’s sleeping system. Plenty of people do just fine with a length-wise bed.

You can check out the Flarespace flares here.

Did you try Sprinter van flares? What did you think?