Purchased new vehicle, dealership paid off old vehicle, positive equity used as down payment

You need a general journal entry.  See example below:

                                                                                                                     DR                      CR

New vehicle cost                                                                                    50,000

Old vehicle cost                                                                                                                   25,000

Accumulated depreciation                                                                  10,000

Old loan                                                                                                   15,000

New loan                                                                                                                              35,000

Gain/Loss on Disposal         - Whatever is needed to balance your transaction                                                                                              

That unfortunately did not answer my question.  Can someone help me?

Hi there, Bearcrazy5.

You'll want to create a barter account. It is used to post both sides of a traded transaction. You can follow these steps on how to set it up:

1. From the List menu, select Chart of Accounts.
2. Press CTRL+N on your keyboard to create a new account.
3. Choose Bank and click Continue.
4. You can enter Barter Account as the name, then click Save.

Also, another way to record this is through a journal entry. However, it's best to seek some help from an accountant so they can further guide with it.

Here are the articles for your reference: 

• Set up a clearing account
• Manually track loans in QuickBooks Desktop

Keep on posting if you need more help with this. Stay safe!