Good to hear they are still taking care of this recall. I only recently found out about it after rotating tires on my wife's 97 QX4. I was inspecting the suspension on this otherwise rust free (aside from the exhaust) QX4, when I saw a little bubble behind the undercoating. I poked it with a screwdriver and it went right through, so I started poking around with a screwdriver, and before I knew it I had revealed about a 8"x2" hole. The tower hasn't started separating yet though.
I googled rust problems and found a few threads on the subject along with the TSB. It would appear my wife's QX4 is still in the repairable stage, as the hole stops about 1/2" above the ridge that deems it unrepairable.
But honestly after looking through the repair procedure, as an engineer, and having worked on cars all my life, I would not be satisfied to let my wife drive around with that repair. As a winter beater, or for use around the farm, maybe, but not as my wife's daily especially since we are looking to start a family soon. The repair brace is only as good as the metal it is bolted to, and if the area behind the brace is already prone to holding moisture and rusting out, I can only imagine adding another layer of steel above that to trap moisture and contaminants would expedite that, once the material is compromised there will be nothing for the brace to hold onto.
The car has about 220,000 miles on it, we have owned it since 150k, and it has given us no major problems, overall I have been impressed. We weren't ready to get rid of it quite yet as we are buying a house and don't want the loan of a new car before our mortgage is finalized, although we had been looking since we plan to expand our family, and a 220k mi car will only last so much longer.
I don't want to do anything to particularly "speed up" the process, but I did not take care to re undercoat the area after I removed the offending rust. I'm kind of hoping it will hold out for another 3-4 months until winter is over and our house is completed, but possibly during that time it will rust just far enough to be considered for buyback. My wife is still driving it currently, and I am keeping a close eye on the tower for any separation, although I am feeling uneasy about that.
I'm also unsure about the state policy part of the recall, as we are in NC, not part of the northern states included in the campaign, I never received anything in the mail as far as the recall goes. I haven't checked to see where it was previously, but it was bought here in NC as well. We do get a considerable amount of snow here in the mountain area of the state.