Leno himself commented on how nervous he was when they were filming the scene.

These are actually rather simple cars, and Leno himself has demonstrated how easy it is to take the 'engine' apart and service it. People at the time understood steam, and the ease of service was one of the big selling points.

But as easy as they were to service how many owners who could afford one be the type of person to drag out the old blacksmithing tools to make any repairs? We may drive cars that the rest of the world looks on as expensive and complicated things, but I would venture to say that anyone here could easily do most of the repair work on their Mercedes. Back then? Maybe, but doubtful.

Leno also said that steamers in general were hard to start on a cold morning because starting them really involved getting up enough steam pressure which involved warming everything up. Therefore on cold nights it was common to keep a pan of burning coal under the boiler. This also led to more than one garage burning down, and this did little to help steamer sales.

Once the electric starter became common the only folks that bought steamers, like the Franklin, were those that wanted quite and powerful operation.