search doesn't work

the search on here has always been "iffy" but now just ...

Tried doing a search for "snap on"  as in the tools, but I don't just want to search tools, there could be listings all over the place, clothes, antiques, posters, signs, toys .....  try it, use the quotes because you want to search EXACT phrase.

Tried also doing a search for "Model A", as I love hot rods and even the standard cars/pickups/vans. Try it ...

I also love custom vans, so tried to do a search (was hoping to narrow it down) for "van" (no quotes as it's a single word. Guess what ?? well my guess is there might be a 4 character limit. I'm only guessing because I got NO error message, page just sat there doing nothing.

Thought, ok maybe I need to put "custom van" even though I wanted plain as well. The search phase disappeared to be replaced with "Search all of Trade Me".

This is on the neglected desktop version btw.

Also, why the heck would I want the search to pop out ?? Heard the expression just because you can ...  So many gimmicks are breaking this site, for some (crazy) reason there are different version for different screen sizes. We did this back in the 90's. It can be done with responsive design