Carly - Anyone have it / use it - Page 1 - In-Car Electronics (2024)

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Does anyone here use Carly to diagnose issues on their car ? Its being advertised on many many YT videos and was wondering how good it is.

I went online to price it up, leveraging black friday sales, and you have to state the car you want to use it on and its £87 quid. However if I want to use it on other cars then I have to pay another £40.

Seems expensive.

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I've just bought one and quite like it. Very good user interface and you can customise things on the car, eg I added a digital speedo to my dash which wasn't there previously as well as the indicators flashing when I unlock the car.

That being said if you read the fine print you'll realise that the device is 'free' and what you're paying for is a years subscription. I read that bit a little too late.

So although I like it and would be happy if it was a lifetime licence I am somewhat regretting my purchase knowing I'll have to renew the licence the following year (which I won't do).

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I think I will swerve it then. My cars are circ 2000 / 2005 and the number of options available would be small compared to a car made after 2015.

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sbk1972 said:

I have one for BMWs and it makes a good interim step between a free app + £20 bluetooth code reader and a full pro code reader or laptop set up. There are useful things you can do, depending on the car, for example I have coded in hazards to flash on "oh fk" braking and for the mirrors to fold. Error codes are far more accurate too and the ability to validate mileage is very useful.

That said, I did get it before they went to the subscription model and I am not sure that I would now, as the cars I now have need much less DIY spannering.

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It seems to work pretty well on 2000s BMWs. Someone who had it coded my Z4 to turn off auto-locking and a beep from the parking sensors every time I put it in reverse, then added 3-flash indicators and flash and beep on locking/unlocking.

I believe it is also good for reading fault codes, but not much use for clearing them so when his subscription came up for renewal he bought a dongle and used something else. And the subscription is the issue because you only code your car once and there are other options for reading codes that will also clear them like C110/C310 coders that don't involve an annual charge.

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Bimmercode. down load the app, buy a compatible OBD adapter and pay a one off subscription

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Depends on the codes (for example, Carly doesn't clear airbag faults as far as I'm aware).

If you're near Leeds, I've got Carly for all vehicles and an Autophix 7910 for BMW you're welcome to use.

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You can read and reset codes with the most basic of OBD readers and free apps.

Carly is really good, I did have one issue where I bricked my rear light module and the app couldn't load my backup - it disappeared somehow.

It was resolved by sending the back up file, which was present on my phone, to Carly. They amended the file name and sent it back to me and it resolved it.

I understand that if you have an iPhone, this is not possible - Im not sure what would have happened in that scenario.

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I was also looking at Carly but was put off by the annual subscription.

I currently use a Carista bluetooth ODB2 adaptor and Torque Pro for Android. The Torque Pro interface isn't the best for monitoring things, but works well for fault codes and resetting them. (2003 3 Series).

Carista:

https://caristaapp.com/adapter

They also do a subscription app, which works with all the cars they cover for £46.99 per year.

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Just a word of warning to anyone thinking of getting a Carly. In short I've personally found it to be very basic in its functionality, it has the ability to unlock some features on some German cars but for the most part it's just a basic code reader. I don't see what it does that a £10 OBD reader from eBay wouldn't also do.

Now on to the warning, whilst I was aware it was a 1 year subscription I was paying for and the actual OBD reader was 'free' what I didn't realise at the time was that the subscription automatically renews. The first I knew about it was when I saw the payment go through my PayPal, I contacted Carly who cited some crap about German law applying and if I wanted to cancel the renewal I would have to do so at least one month prior to the renewal.

Poor timing for me as I'm self employed and just taken a month off work as paternity leave. Wasting £125 for a product I don't think highly of was unnecessary to say the least. I've raised a complaint with PayPal to see if I can reverse it but I'm not holding my breath.

In conclusion I think it's a simple product dressed in a fancy frock, the app is nice but nothing I couldn't achieve with a cheap scanner. I think their new business model is predatory and highly misleading, I'm usually fairly astute but did not notice the automatic renewal at all.

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Thanks bumblebee. I totally agree with you. I hope you get your money back.

I use an Autel coder reader. Cost me £110 about 5/6 years ago and its is pretty good. doesnt unlock features as it's more a code reader / clear. I see these code readers as helpful devices that help with 90% of errors but anything more deeper then you will need to go to the manufactor / car makers software.

Simon

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I bought a carly adaptor when I had a E85 z4 as Carly was about the only one of the "apps" that could do anythng coding related on that platform.

I used it a few times to read error codes (which I could have done with anything else, and I coded in some very minor unimportant things I could do without.

On my Golf I used it to reset an airbag light I accidently triggered, and most of the coding it offered my car already had or was useless nonsense.

I was on a monthly plan (they sent me the offer when I didnt buy a package initially). which was a ballache to cancel. You couldnt just log in and end the subscription you had to go through a process with the customer service who would keep trying to make you stay.

But yes, I thought the package was lacking and a bit meh for the money to be honest.

I think it says alot when alot of youtubers advertise it and take the sponsorship cash but in their next video are back to using INPA/VCDS/Autel diagnostic etc.