2008 Subaru Legacy- HELP! Engine dies when clutch is released

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I would let this car go but the engine died a couple of year ago and we did a swap for $5,000 because we owed money on it. So we are stuck with it now. It also had a clutch done a year or two before that.

Here's what happened:
My husband got out of work around 2 am and went to start his car. The outside temps were in the 20s but it started up without a problem. When he went to release the clutch the car died. It started again fine but when he released the clutch (this time the car was in neutral) the engine died again. He had the car towed to our mechanic who has diagnosed it as a bad transmission. He says it will cost $1,500 to swap the tranny out with a used on that has 170,000 miles on it (no thanks!) I told him that I want to take it home and deal with it at a later time because its too much money right now. I asked him if he was able to drive it out of his garage bay or if he had to push it and he said he was able to drive it out. He said that he managed to get it "unstuck" to drive it out of the garage bay... wtf does that mean? Is that a thing??

I am a skeptical person, but I trust this mechanic more than others. He is always busy and doesn't need the work to be making up issues, however I also feel that he may be making things sound worse than they are so it's either worth his time or I get the car out of his hair. I want to attempt to drive it home (10 minutes down the road from his shop) . If it doesn't make it home, I will have it towed back to his shop and start searching for a better deal on a replacement transmission. If it does make it home I want to try a couple of different things I read about online (see next paragraph) Then drive it up and down the street everyday for a month or so to see if the problem reoccurs before really taking it out on the road.

My question is, why would the engine die without engaging the transmission if it was transmission related?? I've read a whole bunch of different similar scenarios suggesting cleaning the MAF and looking at the IAC. I plan to look at the air filter and put some fuel system cleaner in it in the gas tank. I don't know how any of this would matter if it's not being put under load when it dies though... I mean it dies in neutral for f*cks sake. How can I eliminate the transmission as the source of the problem? I think that is my first step...
Thanks all!
 

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