Police Chief Joseph Roark is hoping to update and replace his existing fleet of police cruisers with the lease of seven new Chevrolet Impalas next year.

While the police department typically makes an annual purchase of two Ford Crown Victorias to replace older vehicles with higher mileage that are phased out of service, Roark is hoping to save money on maintenance in the long term by starting from scratch with a new fleet of low mileage vehicles.

“The idea behind it is ultimately to lower my maintenance and repair bills while at the same time lowering my initial capital outlay,” Roark said. “For less money in terms of maintenance and capital outlay and repair, I can lease seven new cruisers for what I normally do purchasing two new vehicles.”

In contrast to the more spacious, eight-cylinder engine, rear-wheel drive Crown Victoria, the Chevrolet Impala runs on a six-cylinder engine and front-wheel drive. Despite the smaller engine, Roark said the Chevrolet will be more gas efficient, boast better handling during winter weather conditions and will last longer under warranty.

Roark estimates that the switch will save him as much as 12.5 percent on his annual maintenance and repair costs, which does not include the anticipated fuel savings for the six-cylinder cruiser.

“I should actually be outlaying less money a year (by buying a new fleet) than purchasing the two. It’s a fiscally promising program,” Roark said.

Departments in Londonderry and Derry have begun leasing vehicles, as has the neighboring town of Windham, which made the switch to Chevrolet Impalas last spring with the leasing of two of the vehicles. Now the Windham police department has four of the marked Impalas and two more that are being used as administrative vehicles. Windham Chief Gerald Lewis said he has been pleased with their performance so far.

“Essentially, we did what Pelham does: buy a couple cars a year to replace several cars of high mileage that were prone to breaking down or prone to more maintenance,” Lewis said. “We saw this as an opportunity to update our fleet more universally and have a more mechanically sound, efficient fleet.”

Lewis warned that it was still too early to tell for sure if Windham would make the transition to Chevy Impalas permanent or not. With the vehicles all under three-year leases, Lewis said the town and the department would review their performance when the time came.

“We have to see how the Chevy holds up to the rigors of police work, which is they get a little bit more use, more stop and go, harder turns, harder breaking, and things of those nature. Alternators and batteries, they’re all impacted by the type of service they perform,” he said. “We’ll evaluate that over the next few years.”

Roark is now waiting for selectmen to decide if the money allocated for the leasing of the new vehicles should come out of the town’s operating budget, or through a warrant article at the next town meeting. He said the idea had received positive reviews from selectmen and the Budget Committee, though he would prefer the leases to go into the operating budget in order to replace the line item for the purchase of two new Crown Victorias.

“When you’re only purchasing two vehicles at a time, and I have seven marked vehicles in my fleet, you’re only replacing a portion of the fleet – a third at a time,” Roark said. “By leasing, if I replace my whole fleet I can turn those over in three years when they’re around 80,000 miles and still under warranty so I can save significantly under expenses.”