On 23rd December I put my 73 into the local garage for an mot, they have mot'd it many times before. Whilst there I thought I would get them to change the oil, filter, plugs, points, air filter and flush the cooling system and re-fill. Anyway, they rang me to tell me that the rad was leaking so no point doing the cooling system until that was sorted, they also didn't change the plugs. I picked up the car, took it home, about 5 minutes round the corner and put it straight in the garage as it was raining. The following Monday (28th) we decided to give the car a run, having owned the car for 18 years it never fails to start just about first time every time, even if left for a couple of months and runs so smooth and quiet. Anyway the car took about 5 attempts to start and wouldn't tick over, I finally managed to get it to the top of the drive whereupon it cut out. I got it going again and sat there with my foot on the throttle to keep it going and we left with it not running well at all. Once warm it did run as it usually does. On returning we noticed that the freezer and the tumble dryer in the garage were covered in black deposits from the exhausts, see photos, this has never happened before and the top of the drive was the same from sitting there keeping it running initially. I put the car away and today (Friday) we gave it another go. Again, 4 or 5 attempts to start, stopped at the top of the drive and this time once I got it going again plumes of grey smoke from the exhausts. Took the car out and again, 10 minutes or so before it settled down and ran smoothly. On returning I decided to wash it and I got talking to my neighbour who is fairly knowledgeable regarding cars having built his own Caterham. I explained the issues to him and then ran the car for about 10 minutes, again continuous grey plumes of smoke, he seemed to think it was more like steam than exhaust fumes, admittedly there was very little normal exhaust smell. Anyway we checked the oil levels and the newly installed points all seemed ok. My question is , do these new problems seem like something the garage could have caused, bearing in mind they only changed the points, oil and filter, or has something else occurred purely by coincidence? Any advice, thoughts would be welcome.