Steering Is Tight problems of the 1999 Nissan Pathfinder

I was driving my car into my neighborhood. I turned a corner heard a "clunk" my steering was tight. I then turned into my driveway and lost my steering. Fortunately I was moving slow and did not hit anything. I got out of my vehicle looked under the hood and discovered that my left front wheel well had rusted through and had rotated up and into my steering column breaking the spring in the column and knocking out my steering. So far Nissan and my dealer have done nothing. They have rejected my claim that this is a safety problem and they have not given me a formal estimate of the cost to repair. They did offer me $500 of trade in value towards a new vehicle purchase. On November 13, 2009 I requested that the vehicle be repaired at my cost. I visited the dealer on December 1, 2009 to check on progress, and as of this afternoon December 4, 2009 they have not prepared an estimate. I feel this is a safety issue an additional bracket would prevent the wheel well from hitting the steering column. I am lucky that it happened in my driveway later that day was going to drive that vehicle to new york state where if this happened at high speed would have been a serious and possible fatal crash. Instead I drove a rental car after my vehicle was towed to the dealer.