Get the "makethicker" plugin from here

1. Create a cylinder and rotate it 90 degrees as shown and scale it to look roughly like a tyre, 2. Set the caps to 1 and the HEIGHT SEGMENTS to 4...

MAKE EDITABLE and select both sides as shown, using EXTRUDE, SCALE, EXTRUDE INNER and BEVEL make something resembling the shape of the sides of the tyre as above!

In the top view and in POINT MODE select the middle points and SCALE em out a bit just to give the tyre a little more rounding.

Now we are going to create a tread object to be repeated 1. Make a new POLYGON OBJECT and 2. Here it is, empty ready to build some points/face in it.

1. Make sure your on the MOVE TOOL and 2. In POINT MODE, 3. HOLD "CTRL" and add in some points to make half of the tread pattern as shown (study a few using google images) BRIDGE the points (see my C4D basics tutorial for bridging) to create several "seperate" faces as shown...

To mirror this half 1. Drop a SYMMETRY OBJECT into the scene 2. Drop the tread object into the SYMMETRY and 3. Set MIRROR PLANE to "XY" 4. to get it to mirror onto the other side as shown.

Make the SYMMETRY object EDITABLE and you end up with a symmetry and a POLYGON, drag the POLYGON out as shown and delete the symmetry as its no longer of use to us, we have a POLYGON OBJECT made from both sides....Cool eh? ;-)

1. From the front view and in POINT MODE edit the points to follow the tyre more closely, 2. Heres where we use the MAKETHICKER PLUGIN, in FACE MODE select all the faces in the POLYGON tread object and choose MAKETHICKER from the PLUGIN MENU up top, set it to "2" and APPLY and as you can see instant thickness...very quick, very cool!!

1. Add a bit more detail to the treads using EXTRUDE/INNER/BEVEL etc and 2. Choose FUNCTIONS and 3. DUPLICATE, 4. Input a number here something between 40-60...I used 50 in the end and 5. Set the MOVE to "0" as Y is set to 500 by default.

1. DUPLICATE gives us a NULL OBJECT filled with 50 copies of the tread object, now we need a SPLINE to arrange these around, 2. Drop a CIRCLE SPLINE into the scene and 3. SCALE it to fit the tyre roughly

At this point when I ARRANGED the tread around the spline they faced outwards, so I ROTATED the SPLINE by 180 so it was facing the opposite way and for some reason this worked ;-))

Anyway heres the ARRANGE part 1. SELECT the NULL OBJECT containing all the copies, 2. Choose FUNCTIONS>ARRANGE and 3. Type in "Circle" so it knows which SPLINE to ARRANGE around...

BANG!! there you go a nice car tyre with chunky tread, different patterns can be found online and by scaling the NULL OBJECT you can make the tread stick out more or less etc...Also the amount of duplicates must be experimented with to get the kind of tread spacing you want ;-))

Throw a Black texture onto em and there you go, maybe make a decal for the writing on the sides or use a BUMP MAP to raise the lettering....Have Fun!!