The four Wenham police cruisers that have been off the road since last Friday are expected to return to service on Wednesday.

The Wenham Police Department has six cruisers in all. After an outside inspection last week determined that four of those cruisers – all with 100,000 miles or more on the odometer – were unsafe for emergency use, those cruisers were taken off the road and sent in for repairs.

In the meantime, the department has been borrowing two marked cruisers from the Essex County Sheriff’s Department and an unmarked cruiser from the Middleton Police Department, Police Chief Ken Walsh said in a press release issued on Tuesday. A complete copy of the press release is attached to this story as a PDF.

There was one marked Wenham cruiser on the road at all time, Walsh said in a later interview, even while Wenham officers were using a Sheriff’s cruiser to patrol the town.

The chief’s unmarked car also remained in service. It was recently replaced after being smashed by a falling tree in the October snow storm.

The initial inspection of the cruisers was conducted last week in Wenham by mechanics from Birchler's Automotive of Natick, a company that specialize in emergency vehicles, Walsh said. Those inspections found that three of the cruisers should not be used and a fourth cruisers should only be used for administrative duties and not respond to emergency calls.

Some of the concerns raised after the initial inspection and evaluation included brake problems, loose wheel bearings, an engine oil cooler hose leak, right tire rot, a parking brake was not holding, loose rear wheel bearings and the front brake pads were worn, among other issues, according to Walsh.

After that determination, the vehicles were driven to Natick for repairs.

“We should have our cruisers back (on Wednesday),” Walsh said.

Walsh said the town was being charged a special municipal rate of $75 per hour for the repairs but said he did not have a total cost for the inspection and evaluation of the cars or the subsequent repairs. He referred those question to Town Administrator Jeff Chelgren, who could not be reached after an e-mail and phone message was left for him on Tuesday afternoon.

The problems with the cruisers never hamstrung the department’s response for the five days that the four cruisers were in Natick, Walsh said.

In seeking replacement cruisers, Walsh said he first checked with Hamilton and then Topsfield before locating two available cruisers from the Essex County Sheriff’s Department plus one from Middleton. Use of the cruisers does not cost Wenham anything.

“It is part of our mutual aid agreement,” Walsh said.

Borrowing cruisers in not unprecedented in the region, Walsh said, noting that Topsfield had to borrow some cruisers a few years ago after two cruisers were totaled in the same crash.

Last year the Wenham department did not get a new cruiser, Walsh said. The cost of a new cruiser was not included in the fiscal 2012 budget. An article was proposed for special town meeting last fall but it was pulled from the Town Meeting warrant before going to voters.

Last March, Walsh wrote to the Board of Selectmen, Chelgren and the Finance Advisory Committee saying, among other things, that the department needed two new cruisers but he was requesting one cruiser “in the interest of the budget.” In the end, funding was not included for the one cruiser.

“We have been saying we need new cruisers for a while,” Walsh said on Tuesday, but the elimination of a new cruiser in the 2012 budget “is a sign of the times.”

For years, Walsh said the department got one new cruiser each year and every third year the department got two new cruisers. The newest cruiser was bought in fiscal year 2011, which was late in calendar year 2010, Walsh said. That was the one cruiser that remained on patrol as the others were in for repairs this week.

For fiscal year 2013, which starts on July 1, Walsh said he has requested three new cruisers. Fully equipped, each cruisers costs about $33,000.

Walsh said he is still deciding which carmaker he prefers. The Dodge cruisers the department has now have been problematic, he said, and he is looking at possibly switching to Chevrolet.