Mercury

Ok. i have a mercury sable 1990 and there is smoke coming out of the hood! the last time this happened for a while and then the car died when i was driving it (in the middle of the darn street!!) took it to the mechanic and they said/replaced what they said is the water tank? it cost more than $200 to replace it! the car was fine. less than a month later the car started smoking again!!! a couple weeks after it started up again i went to get the oil changed ( way overdue) and they never said that anything was wrong (other than the belt needed to be replaced). as of know its still smoking.what in the world is wrong with it?my mechanic is owned by him. i dont go to a dealer.lots of miles. 3 year old transmission.i swear i put more money in this car than what my parents paid for it.

"more then $200! did they replace the radiator?" does the steam smell like hot water or coolant? might want to "replace radiator & heater hoses & thermostat!" if they did replace the radiator they only did "half the job!" is/was the engine overheating? might want to replace the belts, flush/boil out the cooling system before you replace the thermostat! "mileage?" note; engine dirty? steam clean it!