Easy answer - I've been down this road. Once tagged as a buy-back, always tagged as a buy-back and Audi wants nothing to do with it. As stated earlier, it's likely a situation where they were keeping a VIP customer happy. Cost of doing business.

I have a good relationship with my dealer (salesman and techs) and they gave me the likely answer based on an S8 I found with a buy-back tag. It was for sale by another dealership in my state (MI), but when I tracked it down, the selling delaership was in MA. The MA dealership wouldn't tell me anything - they were right lipped.

Imagine how hard that car would be to resell in five years. Try explaining the story and convincing the next buyer that it was nothing. Glad to hear that you decided to move on. It's a honeytrap. 😬