As of now, we haven't because we are seeing how much the estimate will cost before deciding. Most likely we will involve insurance, but because the last estimate was quite high, we want to poke around to see if there are more reasonable estimates.

My car is a 2006 RX 330! Thanks so much!!!

 

The list price of your headlamps is only $709. Street price is $529, and your bodyshop would get them for even less than that with their wholesaler account.

Now is the time to question the integrity of the first body shop. My guess is they are trying to tell you the car is salvage with a fraudulent estimate, so they can buy it from you for a few hundred dollars, fix it for under $2k their cost, and make a killing. They basically steal your car and then sell it for profit. Maybe they aren't doing that, I can't tell from here. Sure reeks of it, though,

Hit up a few more places that come recommended or could otherwise be trusted. Compare prices. From the pics, there's no way that's $8.5k worth of damage unless you tweaked the front frame rails.

 

He did say that I had slight frame damage, but of the $8500 dollar damage estimate, $2700 comes from the cost of headlights itself.

Thank you so much for your input!