I think many folks today need transportation, although I don't assume to know about the OPs situation.
When the estimate is used with a dollar amount, it sometimes means the consumer is gonna get raked over the coals. This estimate, given when the dealer should be taking care of the damage IMO, seems to indicate to me that the car owner is likely going to be taken advantage of. As I suggested with the service Code 59, policies were (are?) in place to cover these types of situations.
I suppose the situation may have other details concerning where the responsibility of the repair costs which may apply.. such as if the car was purchased by the present owner, at that dealer, and if the car had received regular service at the same dealer (the car's original, or sparkplugs installed by that dealer, for example). Still, the damage was done in the dealer's garage, and IMO, that's their responsibility, not just because the dealer probably has more assets than the car owner, but more along the lines of "you break it, you buy it".
The details of the repair are parts, and labor. If I broke off a sparkplug in my home shop, and took it to a dealer to be fixed, the costs might actually be $1700. That's generally list price for the parts (dealer profit), plus the shop labor rate (about $72/hr here, but not the mechanic's hourly pay). So, the dealer isn't losing $1700 by doing the repair. But it seems that the car owner didn't cause the damage in this case.
As another response indicated, many folks do just get replacement cars, and I recently discovered this same thing, when I was looking for info about the high numbers of GM speedometer failures in late model cars and trucks. One forum had over 600 posts, and quite a few car owners that were given estimates in the range of $500 (from GM dealers), decided to go buy other (non-GM) vehicles instead of paying for something out of their own pockets, which they felt was GM's responsibility. There were several situations where the GM dealers took care of the repairs, even though the owner's cars may have been out of warranty. Different situation, though.
WB ......... metalworking projects