Do you use your vehicle for work? Contractor / own your own business? What I'm getting at is, do you figure it into your tax return. After living 15 years without a truck payment, and now looking forward to paying five years for this amount of money, it's hard to get in the heads of others who are constantly upgrading every couple of years. Obviously easier if you make six figures.
On the ceramic coat, did you use regular retail products? I assume the professional grade products are of much higher quality.
16 hours of work is...a lot. I'm not the guy that says my time is too valuable to do it myself. I do EVERYTHING myself. But I bought a truck just now, in my midwestern winter. Can't really sit in the driveway every day polishing my truck like a Floridian can. For fear of the elements, I haven't driven it since last weekend when I drove it home from South Carolina. It just sits in the driveway avoiding the salted roads.