coolant leaking, smoke coming from under the bonnet???

[Martin-Fiesta-MK6-1.4]

i have a fiesta 1.4 53 zetec and today i noticed 2 puddles under the car, just below where the radiator is, then when i took it out for a normal drive (about 7 miles) i popped the bonnet to see smoke/steam coming from behind the engine, any ideas what this could be??? NOTE - i had the head gasket replaced 5000 miles ago

[isetta]

An array of things it could be. You need to see where it is coming from. eg. any hose connection, water pump, thermostat cover. engine block core plug (do they still have them like in the old days)

[Luke4efc]

Head gaskets are prone to more failures after they've gone for the first time. As said above could be anything.

Is your res empty (or losing coolant)? More likely you had a coolant leak and it's overheated the engine and the coolant has boiled.

I'd clean it up and try and find the leak (although that's kinda obvious thinking about it lol). Coolant hoses might've gone brittle with age and developed a crack.

[isetta]

"Head gaskets are prone to more failures after they've gone for the first time". I do agree with this in general.   You see car adverts where it says just had head gasket done. That to me is a bad thing - to keep quiet about, not a good thing to mention.  I know in theory it should not be more likely to fail but it can be - eg, was the head skimmed, and even if they charged you for head skimming, was it actually done properly or at all. You can't tell unless you saw the head when it came back from the skimmers before fitting. 

[Martin-Fiesta-MK6-1.4]

its in the garage now, he said with confidence it wouldnt be the head gasket...

[Martin-Fiesta-MK6-1.4]

turns out it was the rocker cover gasket and the fluid was infact oil not coolant :)