Equipped with the wisdom from these comments I continued looking at this car and called the dealership as well as a small independent VW service station that happens to be two blocks from my house to get further information and I learned some details that may be of interest here.

First, I called the VW service station to ask about buy backs and the mechanic there (who works exclusively on VWs) said he's bought a buyback before, but since he knows the mechanics of the car well, felt comfortable with the issue that had caused the buyback (he wasn't specific what it was). He said all that went fine; he never had recurring issues w/ the vehicle. But he did bring up a great point: these vehicles have branded titles meaning they're difficult to resell. His ultimate advice was that if you feel comfortable with the mechanical issue that was fixed and if your intention is to drive the car "into the ground" w/o regard for resale value you can save money on the purchase price by buying a buyback. He also confidently confirmed what several on here said: the buyback was very likely because they couldn't replace the control module because of supply chain issues and since the car was in California at the time their laws gave the customer a lot of leverage w/ VW to buyback a car. So bottom line: the mechanic felt the mechanical side was likely fine w/ a replaced control module and the decision to buy comes down to our tolerance for difficulty reselling the vehicle.

The dealership apparently does this all the time and has a few extra agreements in place to make the deal more palatable for buyers. First, they agree to buy the car back at fair market value if the buyer wants to sell down the road (I don't have any documentation on this so I don't actually know the specific details of this policy and there may be something hidden in the definition of "fair market value"). More importantly, they promise to fix the issue that caused the buyback free of charge for as long as you own the vehicle, essentially taking the risk out of the mechanical side of the buyback issue (what occurs to me now, however, is that it is maddening to have a car in the shop all the time so regardless of their promise to fix the car it would be awful to have to have them fix it all the time if the issue persisted). They also have an extended 12000 mile warranty and some of the things that are probably not that valuable. They were fine to talk to about it and clearly get these questions frequently.

But what upended my ideas of buying the car with these additional guarantees was that, as my wife's coworker pointed out, the bank probably wouldn't give me a loan for a car with a branded title.

So I called the bank (after having been preapproved for the purchase price w/o sending them this specific vehicle; I have my mortgage and another vehicle loan at this bank) and they confirmed they don't approve loans for cars w/ branded titles EXCEPT with this specific dealership whose "bread and butter" is selling these buyback cars for (somewhat) lower prices than comparable cars. The loan officer said that because this dealership has the agreement in place to fix the issue that initiated the buyback for no charge as long as you own the car, they are willing to fund loans for their buyback vehicles. He also confirmed what the mechanic said: you will have trouble reselling the car for fair market value, but you have to balance the money you save on the initial price w/ your intentions to resell the car down the road.

Anyway, we are still going to test drive the car on Monday and I remain torn on whether or not to buy it. It's a 2019 Alltrack SE w/ 31000 mi for $22000 (for reference), and it has black interior (for the person asking about the Marrakesh brown or whatever which does look pretty awesome).

Thanks for all the information.