Paint or Raptor coating

You're much better having the truck repainted than having it painted with spray-in liner. This stuff becomes rock hard, so if you eventually end up having some bodywork to do or rust to deal with, good luck with that!

As for the single stage urethane vs 2 stage base and clear, both are good options but the thing with single stage is that it tends to fade and lose its lustre over time, meaning you have to polish it from time to time if you want it to stay looking good. If you want minimal maintenance, go with base/clear

 

Meh

The neighbor of my friend wrapped his leased Subaru. He says it was mainly to help protect the paint, but the gun metal grey finish looked badass, too. But honestly I don't think he got his money back. It may have prevented a few rock chips or scratches, but I doubt that came anywhere close to depreciating the car by the cost of the wrap job. And yeah, it was pealing off pretty bad after 2 years.

A good wrap job can still cost a couple grand or more, depending on the colors etc... So as I said before, don't worry about what the "resale" value will end up being because you will almost certainly not make your money back - far from it. Cars are not "investments" unless you're buying serial #1 Ferraris or something and don't intend to drive it.

Do it because you like the look and it works for you.

 

jbrandt ,

Obviously you're not much of a fan of anything and clearly you're missing the point of my desire to repaint my truck. And with a statement like "cars are not investments" you must not take care of your vehicles and just abuse the hell out of them. I once bought a 1990 VW Golf base model for $600. I put a set of tires on it and a muffler, drove it for two years and 40,000 miles and then sold it for $1200. I also bought a 2006 Audi A3 for $1000, repaired the engine for $250, put over 30,000 miles on that car and sold it for $2900. In 2017 I bought a brand new VW Jetta SE with 3 miles in it. The dealership is willing to give me more than I paid for it 4 years ago towards a trade. So, yeah. Cars can be an investment, you know what you're doing and take care of your things.
I feel I bought my truck at the right time for the right price. I could sell it as is right now and make money on my investment. So much so I could even put that $3000 paint job on it and still make some profit, not to mention the use I've got out of it over the last 3 years.
But is seems to you that there is no option, that no matter what I did I am foolish for even bothering to do anything. And I could only guess why that is.

 

If you consider throwing rocks and dirtbikes in the bed of my truck, and going offroading "beating the hell out of my truck" then yes, I absolutely beat the hell out of it. I don't for a minute think about how a load of gravel or driving trails might affect its resale value.

I buy things to use them.

My statement that "cars are not investments" doesn't mean you can't ever make a profit off selling it. My point is that if you buy a car/truck for the express reason to try and sell it later for a profit, you're almost certainly going to limit how you use it. You're probably not going to get that load of gravel because you're afraid of scratching it. You're probably not gong to modify it in such a way as to make it more useful/enjoyable to you because that will devalue it as well.

I'm saying use the truck in such a way that gives you value and enjoyment. I literally said "do it because you like the look". If that's a new paint job, why would I fault you for that? I never said don't get a paint job. You even said in your OP that a paint job is likely going to cost more than it would increase the value, so what's your problem?