You'll have no worries at all with 5W-40. The engine will start easily and have good protection when warmed up. Volvo approved synthetic oils in the late seventies, for use in all of their engines.

i like mobil 1 15w 50, with higher miles i think its a good idea to use thicker oil, my friend has a new ford explorer v8 (2007) and it takes 0w 20 , it has 15,000 miles on it and with that oil the engine is banging like hell, same thing with my uncles new toyota sienna ha ha ha , my point is thicker oil is better. this lady in my neighborhood was complaining about her engine being noisy after she got her oil changed by a "gas station" so i put a half a cup in , of mobil 1 the 15 50 that i had left over the engine quieted right down , so draw your own conclusion

Something that I have been doing for years on old cars with great success. I make my own synthetic blend, 1 quart of full synthetic and the rest, regular oil. You get super cleaning from that 1 quart of synthetic along with it's superior lubrication properties, but none of the problems of running completely synthetic, such as increased leaking and so forth. My 82 Supra engine, at 230K looked like brand new inside when I removed the valve cover after feeding it this way for 100k ( I got it with 130k already on it).
Charles

10W or 5W or 20W is the the winter weight which is so many drops per second at 0 degress the second number 10,20,30,40, are the numbers that oil thins out to so a 5W-40 would start great in cold weather and thin to a 40 which is a little thicker viscocity than a 30 hope this helps

Patrick,

I have no personal experience with synthetic oil, but I have been reading the postings of great minds on this Brickborad since it's inception and the advice on the question of switching to synthetic oil has always been NO! The synthetic cleans the engine so well that it will cause leaks in an engine that has not used it from very low mileage.

Len