Yes, unless you can find the auto mechanic equivalent to the Barbaros
doctor, your horse is near dead. You should cremate the whole thing.

I guess you need a serious answer.  Always post the type of car, engine,
type
transmission, etc when you ask a question as this info helps you get more
serious attention..

Burned tire smell could mean several things I guess.  To me, tires
overheating
and oil burning don't smell the same.

If you are burning oil, or if your car is running very rich mixtures of
gasoline.
you can sometimes turn the catalytic converter red hot....

Brakes dragging, parking brake left applied, or clutch material burning has
a
different odor.

Oil leakage onto the exhaust creates a lot of smoke and a oil odor.

It doesn't necessarily mean that your car, whatever it is, is toast...but it
that is also
within the realm of possibility.

You drove it while it appeared to be on fire?  Wow, you got balls
anyway....

The first thing to do is pull over shut it down and get the hell out
fast!!!  Then when/if the smoke stops and not before, you open the hood
to see what was on fire.  If you open the hood before the smoke stops,
you better have a fire extinguisher in your hand because adding air to a
smoking fire can induce a flash fire and the car can go whomp, up in big
flames.

If it was a sickly sweet smell, then I would say you had an antifreeze
leak or dead rad, but burning rubber implies the wiring might have been
on fire.

You now need to open the hood and do a visual inspection to see if you
can spot the damage.  If you can't spot it, then you could try to start
it with the hood open to see if you can then see smoke.  I would want a
fire extinguisher 'real' handy for this.

Until the problem is at least identified, the car isn't likely save to
drive.

Posting the make and year of the vehicle is always helpful.  Some
vehicles have 'known' issues.

Mike
86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00
88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's
Canadian Off Road Trips Photos:  Non members can still view!
Jan/06 http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2115147590
(More Off Road album links at bottom of the view page)

Could be real bad or could be you ran over a plastic bag left in the
road and it stuck to your catalytic converter. At this point you may
have burned all the plastic away already and there is nothing at all
wrong.

-jim