Ram ProMaster Wrap Chicago:
Cost, Specs, and Design Guide

Which ProMaster are we wrapping?

Three ProMaster bodies turn up in our shop and they do not wrap the same. The 1500 on the 136-inch wheelbase with a standard roof is the smallest canvas. The 2500 comes on 136 or 159 inches with a standard or a high roof. The 3500 comes on 136 or 159 inches with the high roof. The high-roof 159-inch is the one we see most, because it is the body HVAC and plumbing crews buy when the crew has to stand up inside the van to work.

Which one you own decides the quote, the artwork and the bay time, so it is the first question we ask. A high roof adds a tall band of side panel above the belt line, a longer run of sill under the sliding door, and a rear door closer to a wall than a hatch. A standard roof on the short wheelbase has less of all three. We measure the van in front of us, not the model name on the paperwork.

What a ProMaster wrap costs

Pricing here is a measurement, not a menu. We take the wrappable square footage off the van, add six percent for waste, multiply by $13.21 a square foot, apply the labor tier the body earns, and round to the nearest fifty dollars. The single-unit anchor for a cargo van full wrap is $4,200, and a ProMaster lands near it when the paint under the film is sound and the body is stock.

Labor is where two vans that look alike separate. A standard build is about eight hours of bay time. A moderate one runs closer to nine. A premium build, meaning a full teardown and clay bar or a surface that fights the film, runs about eleven. Old vinyl that has to come off first, a ladder rack bolted through the roof, or shelving brackets run through the side panel all push a van up a tier, and the quote says which tier you are in instead of burying it in a round number.

Coverage is the other lever. Against the full-wrap number for the same van, a partial wrap prices at 0.55, decals and lettering at 0.20, and taking an existing wrap off at 0.40. A color change adds 15 percent, because the jambs, the fuel door and the sill returns all have to be covered before the color reads as paint instead of a sticker.

Fleet discounts are counted per contract, not per calendar year: 3 percent at 2 to 4 vans, 7 percent at 5 to 9, 11 percent at 10 to 24, and 15 percent at 25 or more. Six ProMasters booked as one job sit in the 7 percent tier. The same six ordered one at a time across a year do not.

Every quote already carries the design work and the Pantone matching, the film, the install at 70°F in the bay, the 2-year workmanship warranty, the 5-year material warranty on the film itself, and the production files handed over the day the van leaves. Pickup and return are included across Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, Will and McHenry counties.

How does the ProMaster body change the install?

The ProMaster is a cab-over van with the drive wheels at the front, so the nose stands up tall and close to flat instead of raking back over an engine bay. That is good news for branding, because a flat front holds a logo at the size the windshield behind you can actually read. It also means the fascia is the first problem the installer solves, and on this van the bumper and fascia are thermoplastic olefin. TPO will not hold adhesive on its own, so it gets Avery Dennison T-7000 adhesion promoter before any film touches it. Skip the promoter and the corners start lifting while the rest of the van still looks new.

Our widest print is 59 inches, so a long high-roof side goes down in more than one piece. Where that seam lands is a decision, not an accident. We put it on a body line, behind the sliding door track, or at a panel break where the eye already expects an edge, and never through a logo or a phone number. The two in-house designers lay the artwork out against the measured panel sizes for that exact configuration before the file goes to the printers.

Edges are the other half of the job. Film is relieved and turned into the jambs on the slider and the rear doors so the cut edge sits inside the opening rather than on a weather seal that moves every time the door shuts. Recesses and deep creases get post-heated once the film is laid in, which is what stops it creeping back out of the channel during the first hot week of summer.

Vans arrive dirty and they arrive cold. A ProMaster that has been running Chicago winters gets washed, degreased, then wiped down panel by panel, and anything bolted through the body comes off so the film goes under it instead of around it. If a van comes in frozen it sits inside until the sheet metal is at shop temperature, because film laid on a cold panel will not bond and it will tell on you by spring.

Designing a van that reads from the next lane

• Work the bottom two thirds of the side panel. On a high roof the top band sits above the sight line of the cars beside you and gets read mostly from a sidewalk, so a phone number up there wastes the best film on the van.
• One job per surface. The sides say who you are and what you do. The rear doors carry the phone number and the web address, because the back of the van is what the driver behind you studies while nothing is moving.
• Keep type off the hardware. The sliding door track, the fuel door, the handles and the mirror mounts all break a letterform, and a broken letterform reads as a cheap wrap even when the install is clean.
• Plan for salt. The lower rocker and the rear doors take the worst of the spray from November through April. Dark gloss down there shows film and swirl faster than a mid-tone or a pattern does, so we design the bottom band around what it looks like dirty, not what it looks like on the proof.
• Draw it for the fleet, not for the van. Vans get sold and replaced. We build the artwork so the same layout drops onto a 136-inch and a 159-inch body without being redrawn, which is what keeps van number nine looking like van number one.

What to expect once the wrap is on

Commercial ProMasters get Avery Dennison MPI 1105 or 3M IJ180-CV3 cast vinyl, printed in house on HP Latex and finished with a 3M 8518 gloss overlaminate. Cast film is what lets vinyl sit down into a crease and stay there. The overlaminate is what takes the UV and the road salt so the ink does not. Expect a service life of 5 to 7 years in Chicago conditions. That is service life, not a warranty: the workmanship warranty is 2 years and the material warranty is 5.

Care is simple, and it matters more on a tall van than on a car, because the roof edge and the top of the side panels never get touched by a drive-through brush. Hand wash with a mild soap, keep a pressure washer off the seams and the edges, and get the salt off the lower panels when the weather breaks. When the wrap reaches the end of its life, removal prices at 0.40 of the full-wrap number, and the paint underneath is usually in better shape than the paint that was never covered.

Booking one ProMaster or a mixed fleet

Send the model year, the wheelbase, the roof height and a photo of each side, and we can measure from that. The first response comes back within 2 business hours and the itemized quote follows within 24 hours once we have what we need. For a mixed fleet we would rather come to your yard and survey it ourselves: photograph each unit, confirm which body is which, and write the variations down, so production does not find a surprise halfway through the run.

The shop is in Portage Park at 4711 N Lamon Ave #7, roughly 6,000 square feet of install space across five bays, with secure indoor storage overnight. Graphics are printed in house on two HP Latex 560 printers and an Epson SureColor R5070 and laminated on SEAL equipment, so our install calendar is not waiting on an outside printer. For a rolling fleet we wrap in waves and keep the rest of the vans earning, so you are never down more vehicles than you can carry.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to wrap a Ram ProMaster in Chicago?

A ProMaster 1500 (136-inch wheelbase) full wrap at CFW costs $3,950. ProMaster 2500 high-roof runs $5,250. ProMaster 3500 extended high-roof costs $6,350. All pricing includes design, Avery Dennison cast vinyl, and professional installation.

What are the Ram ProMaster wrap configurations?

CFW wraps all ProMaster configurations: 1500 (136-inch WB, standard roof), 2500 (136 or 159-inch WB, standard or high roof), and 3500 (136 or 159-inch WB, high roof). The high-roof 159-inch is the most common in CFW’s HVAC and plumbing fleet accounts.

How does ProMaster wrapping compare to Transit?

The ProMaster’s cab-over front-wheel-drive design produces a flatter, more vertical front face with more usable advertising surface area. ProMaster installation time is comparable to Transit at equivalent roof heights.

Does the Ram ProMaster plastic front bumper affect wrapping?

Yes. The ProMaster’s front bumper and fascia are thermoplastic olefin (TPO). TPO requires Avery Dennison T-7000 adhesion promoter before cast vinyl. Without primer, TPO adhesion fails within 6–12 months. CFW applies this primer on every ProMaster install.

How long does a Ram ProMaster wrap last?

A ProMaster wrap at CFW lasts 5 to 7 years in Chicago conditions. CFW follows standardized composite surface preparation protocols on every ProMaster.