Accident repair advice (esp. with cross traffic radar)

I was rear-ended. (I caught it on dash cam front and rear facing cameras, yay!)

With the concern over the jolt to the car and the hybrid battery, I took my car to the Toyota Body Shop closest to me. The estimator assured me that the g-force necessary to screw up a hybrid battery is pretty good and my accident was more of a pit maneuver which meant the back of my bumper was hit from the side. It was less of a G-force than a loss of control of my car.

I'm glad I went to a Toyota shop. If you notice in the picture, there is a box with a wire coming from it that is the cross traffic radar and parking assist system. According to their technical specifications, a minor difference in paint thickness, which is inevitable whenever they repaint a bumper, can alter the calibration.

The battle with the insurance company was not that bad, they did argue about the amount of hours the dealership wanted to charge for the calibration, but they agreed it needed to be done.

When I was shopping for a second Prius, I started looking at the used market and noticed there were a lot of totaled cars where they said it was just a rear-end accident. The deal is that the car does not have that big layer of Styrofoam. Most larger cars have some Styrofoam in between the bumper shell and the structure underneath. Not so with my fourth generation Prius.

While my car had minimal external cosmetic damage, my repair costs agreed to by the insurance company exceeded $3,800.

I can say this much, if I went to an independent shop, they would not have been doing the recalibration (as I've heard it, nobody else has the equipment) and that cross traffic sensor would not be doing the job it once had.

I don't know if it's a California state thing, or not, but insurance companies cannot force you to go to a particular repair company. They have places they recommend but they certainly can't limit me as a customer from choosing the Toyota Body Shop. Glad I did.