Pays for outside of tyre to get soft tread (8)
I believe the answer is:
footstep
'tread' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'pays for outside of tyre to get soft' is the wordplay.
'pays' becomes 'foots' (footing is a kind of paying**).
'for' says to put letters next to each other.
'outside of' means to remove the middle letters.
'to get' says to put letters next to each other.
'soft' becomes 'p' (musical abbreviation for 'piano').
'tyre' with its centre removed is 'te'.
'foots'+'te'+'p'='FOOTSTEP'
(Other definitions for footstep that I've seen before include "Mark made when walking" , "Sound of a step of someone walking" , "Sound of a pace" , "Sound of walker" .)