I have 2004 MCS with manual transmission and a lot of miles.

Yesterday on the way home I noticed that car pulls hard right under throttle. Not like alignment is bad, but like I have flat tire. It is accompanied by a clunking rattle. Frequency of the rattle increases if I apply more throttle.

I decided to slowly drive home, but didn't make it. Car stopped reacting on the gas pedal. Now every gear acts as neutral. I was able to safely park. There are no warnings whatsoever.

Now need to tow it to a shop, but have to choose wisely to avoid rip off. Is it possible to determine what's broken just by description? That would help with getting right quote.

 

Sounds like transmission to me

 

Does the tranny shift into all the gears cleanly? When you are in gear and engine running is their any noise? Vibration? Did you make a visual inspection for any obvious problems leaks, CV joints. The passenger side axle has an intermediate CV joint. If that joint blows out the inner shift could spin freely without much noise because the shaft is held in place by a shaft bearing. With one drive shaft spinning freely you car will go no where (if you have standard diff). Ever been stuck with one wheel spinning in mud.

 

This sounds like a loose ball joint (or other suspension component). I've had this happen twice now and the car will move side to side with on/off throttle input.

This combined with the information provided above sounds like a CV axle issue. The engine is clearly still connected to the transmission (rpm connected noise). An internal transmission failure would likely not affect car direction, but an external driveline issue certainly could. I'm willing to bet a CV axle popped out of the trans.

 

Check strut mount