Steering Wheel problems of the 1999 Honda Passport

Approximately 15 months ago we took the vehicle into the Honda dealership because the engine light came on. The car was put on the lift to determine the problem and they pointed out to me that they saw rust on the frame and they felt it was probably unsafe and too expensive to fix. We then went to another mechanic shop to confirm this since the car had up to that point passed regular state safety inspections and had been maintained. We have records to prove this. The second mechanic made a repair to fix the engine light problem and said he also saw the rust but felt it could be used for local driving. We contacted Honda about the rust problem and they denied any fault with the product. We have since learned that many similar complaints were made. The rust became so great so that the shock tower completely tore loose from the body, both left and right sides. We were then forced to junk the car as of October 2010. Honda waited to communicate with us about the recall until December 2010 even though they were aware of this many months before. They say that because we no longer own the car we are not entitled to any compensation. We told them had we been informed about the recall when they were working on this we never would have junked the car. Everything about the car was in good shape. The outside body looked like new and had this rust not occurred to the degree it did we would still have use of the car .