I believe the procedure Klaus was describing was to disable the alarm system, not the auto-locking. The only other Volvo I've ever come across that auto-locks is my mother's '94 960 --it locks when it's put into drive.

On my Mini it's one of the features that only the dealer can program. I'd contact your local Volvo dealer and ask them if they can change it (and hope they know what you are talking about). For the Mini, the dealer is supposed to change that and other features for free for whoever owns the car. I would expect the same courtesy from Volvo.

Good luck with getting it disabled. That would annoy the heck out of me.

--Will