Ran over/into unavoidable road debris - need advice

Judging from your pictures, your front bumper should be replaced. The bumper to fender tabs look like they have be sheared off and there may be hidden damage behind the left center. I would take it to a body shop (that's what your insurance will tell you) and get an estimate. I'm sure that there is in excess of $1000 damage. That being said, I hope your deductible isn't too high on you comprehensive coverage.

 

That sucks. I ran over some debris on the freeway in my Camry SE a while ago, blew out my right front tire and bent the rim out of round. Never got the suspension alignment checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's out of alignment as well.

I got 2 new tires and had the rim somewhat straightened, I can still see that the lip is out of round slightly. But I did it out of pocket.

In your case, it's going to be much more to fix. Probably best to do it through insurance. Hopefully, they don't ask you a lot of questions like "how fast were you going? How close were you following?", and so on...

From the marks on your front end, it looks like a semi shed a retread and you hit it pretty good. I've run over a few of those tire treads shed from 18 wheelers in the past as well. Pretty dangerous!

 

Looks like well over your $500 deductible unless you are very talented DIYer/improviser with a lot of time and tools on your hands. A lot of insurance companies will give you a lifetime guarantee on the repairs if you use a shop that they recommend. Just check Yelp and other sources to verify that the insurance companies shop is a good one before you commit to that. I have used Ameriprise insurance twice and both times their recommended shops had good reviews so I went with them with good results. YICMV (Your insurance company may vary)

 

Still looks bad. Minimum, replace the front bumper cover, maybe the lower grill as well.

 

What a shame...but at least you are OK. Yes, Blizzard White is very difficult to match and/or blend. As others have said, it looks bad enough for a claim. You might want to run your A/C to be sure there wasn't hidden damage to the condenser coils (looks like they were in the path). It should get ice-cold. If not, have a dealer look at it.

 

Here's why I would not necessarily file a claim:

You're probably looking at $1500 worth of damage, and you have a $500 deductible.
If you're not comfortable doing the work yourself, just see what a local shop will charge to repair the damage before you file the claim.
Once you file a claim both you and your car have tainted records.
You...for a few years, and your car for life.
Some day you may want to sell the car and if you're smart you're going to sell it rather than trade it in.
Selling a previously wrecked car is < than selling one with a clean history....just sayin.
If you trade it in, they're going to check as well. If you KNOW you're gonna keep the car until the wheels fall off? Pay to get it fixed. Actually.....keeping a car like a Prius for lunar mileage is the smartest thing in the long run anyway.

This is going to basically be collision damage with you as the at-fault driver. If you're lucky?
It ends here and you're golden for the rest of your life.
However (comma!) if you have fire, flooding, theft, hail, pestilence, civil unrest in the next few years.....then you have TWO claims. Insurance companies start to look at raising your rates or cutting you lose when that happens and you might wind up paying a lot more than the $1,000 that this claim may have saved you.

You're probably looking at a claim situation judging from the pix. I'm just saying that I personally would consider not filing unless the damage is several thousand dollars.

Get more opinions and get multiple estimates for the repair work. Body shops KNOW they can make x$ off of this from an insurance company...probably down to the nearest $10 or so.
If you tell them that this is coming out of YOUR pocket, they might find a way to do it for a lot less money.

GOOD luck!

 

First figure out what your deductible is, generally the choices are $250/$500/$1000/$2000 to see if YOU think it's worth it. Personally I don't think you should file a claim. You would be way better off just paying for it out of pocket, especially if you have a deductible is any higher than $250.

You will be found at fault for sure and I'm not quite sure how you weren't following too closely to not have time to stop (that's what the insurance agent will tell you considering you should be 1 car length behind a vehicle for every 10mph you're going.) It could be argued that the person behind you then could have hit you and so forth had you slammed on your brakes, but regardless you will be at fault and over the course of your driving record (at least for the next 5 to 7 years I think it is?) it will make your insurance go up. Even only at an extra $25 a month for the next 5 years it would be $1,500 and if they have to shell out $1,000+ dollars to fix your car, and their employees time I'm pretty certain they will want to do more than break even by raising it more than $25 a month. I've yet to meet an insurance agent/company that was in the business purely to help people and not make $.

I recently had front bumper work done, including replacement of the front bumper (which had a body kit,) blizzard pearl color, and the grill (among brackets and more important stuff because of a collision) and I have all my receipts for parts and such. If you're interested I can scan through them in the morning and tell you how much each part was, paint price and hours. I'm gonna put a guess in though that you're looking at around 1,200 - 1,800 if it's merely cosmetic and nothing major. Keep in mind, it's a 2010 right? You may be able to find used parts and get them painted for less than buying a brand new ones.

As for paint matching I've heard Chevy has the more difficult colors to match, the shop I used did a pretty okay job at matching. They will need to "blend" the paint it into your fenders and I think regardless of if you go through your insurance or not it MAY show up on a CarFax. But again I think that also depends on which body shop you use and what the laws are. I had fender work done on my Scion tC and it was under 2k and it never showed up on the CarFax. Things like body part replacement won't really make the value of the car drop, things like frame damage however will. To me it doesn't look like frame damage, merely parts.

Local Toyota dealerships around here do not do paint and body work, I found that out after my accident because I trust the one I bought my Prius from and so badly wished they did. They did however know of a couple places near by that they had worked with. I say give them a call and see what they say, reputation is everything for a body shop and if you trust your Toyota dealer then you may trust their recommended body shop. Also check out reviews of different places and ask around.

Make sure after it gets painted you check for any runs in the paint, that they painted your tow covers and that they put the bumper back on evenly (check the gaps.) Those are a few of the problems I had after I got my Prius back from the shop.

Good luck!

After inspecting the photos closer it does look like you'll need some new plastic in your wheel well, looks like it broke through where the screws hold. I think one of those photos is the plastic engine splash shield that is cracked (don't quote me on the part names, I'm not sure what either official names are.) Depending on if you want to go OEM for those parts or not, I'd guess those alone would be somewhere around $200-$400.

One last thing, I found this thread that might be of use.

Cost to Replace Bumper on 2010 Prius | PriusChat

 

Three months ago on a trip to Texas my wife ran over a 6" high curb island in the middle of a gas station parking lot in our Gen III. I could see no external damage and the car seemed to drive OK so we continued on our trip. Back home, we got the alignment checked and the techs said they could not align it - the front suspension was too badly damaged to repair.

We went to our insurance agent (State Farm), told him what happened, and he told us to go to a recommended body shop and get an estimate, which we did. The following is a list of parts they found needed replacing:

Front cross member, LKQ Suspension cross member, LT Support brace, LT Suspension cross brace,
Headlamp washer, O/H bumper assembly, Front seal, Bumper cover w/o fog lamp,
Spoiler, Mount brace, LT front floor pan, Engine cover,
Suspension frame kit (the most expensive part)

We had the repairs done, and the total parts and labor came to $3086.38, of which State Farm paid all but our $100.00 deductible. The car looks and runs fine, but no different than before as far as I can tell.

Just thought I'd add this to your data points.

 

I once saw a lady run over something yellow in the middle of the road and 2 seconds later her car was on fire. Within 2 minutes it had nearly engulfed the cabin. and to make things worse it was in the middle of a bridge. It looked like a brand new car too, poor lady.

 

Increase in insurance is the part most people either don't consider or forget to consider. It's also the reason to go to traffic school when you get a ticket, to keep that "point" off of your record, as your insurance can increase.

Mike

 

I would pull the front bumper off yourself and evaluate what other damage is obvious, then make a decision.

 

OP - to me it does not look all that bad - essentially a few of the clips and screws that hold the bumper to the rest of the car as well as some scuffing that looks like rubber. I'd check under the car to see if there are any signs of damage, and assuming it looks OK I'd just try and put it all back together. It looks like you just need to clip or screw it all back and then a bit of elbow grease on the scuffs and I think it will be hard to tell for anyone but you.