Review Insights · Google Play
Carly - OBD2 car scanner
Carly Solutions GmbH & Co KG · 32,608 ratings · ★ 3.6
3.6
★★★★★
32,608 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 49 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"subscription"
17 negative reviews mention this · 35% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The app it self is good, the issue I have is when it comes time to cancel it's pretty much impossible. Canceling the subscription should be straight forward and not have to go through endless prompts and articles just to cancel. I had to go…" - Juan Landeros
2
"carly"
11 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Beware Auto Renew. Like most on here, unaware of this being a yearly subscription. I used it once, and found it slow, and of no use, so never used it again. I then changed car to a different Make and Model. Later, notice from my bank saying…" - Steven Griffiths
3
"refund"
9 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "this is a rip off of a product, beware that they trick you into a subscription that auto renews and hikes the price up. beyond that it is slow and barely works, most features are either an additional expense or just don't work. rubbish edit…" - N H
4
"money"
9 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Try to cancel and they won't do it until they get the money from you the next year. I cancelled it last year and i paid for it again on the 8/4/2026. When i looked it in the google play it says cancellation day 8/04/2026 even if i did it a …" - Mike Koutsoftas
5
"year"
8 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I don't need an update to reset my oil cbs A year later it's still requiring pointless updates for features that have worked for about 10 years without a problem" - R S
6
"product"
8 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "BUYER BEWARE! This product is terrible. The company's customer service is even worse." - Phillip
7
"paid"
8 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "UTTER SCAM DO NOT BUY FROM THESE PEOPLE I cancelled my subscription 2 months before renewal, they still charged me £105 for renewal on a product I paid £40 for. They refuse to refund me. Absolute scammers." - David Butcher
8
"features"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I don't need an update to reset my oil cbs A year later it's still requiring pointless updates for features that have worked for about 10 years without a problem" - R S
9
"service"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "my life time account continuously disappears , as an early adaptor i find it appalling. services were sold at full fee and it should be honored not access blocked every couple months . promise was life time access and support not until it s…" - Carpet rescue (Daren)
10
"auto"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "it's a scam, don't buy as it has annual subscription with auto renewal and cannot be canceled anywhere on their website.." - Amr EI Sheikh
11
"coding"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Don't waste your money. I bought this for coding which doesn't even work. The app is a bunch of click bait trying to upcharge you. Multiple service requests, they never respond." - Che Cook
12
"doesn"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Don't waste your money. I bought this for coding which doesn't even work. The app is a bunch of click bait trying to upcharge you. Multiple service requests, they never respond." - Che Cook
📋 All 49 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
The app it self is good, the issue I have is when it comes time to cancel it's pretty much impossible. Canceling the subscription should be straight forward and not have to go through endless prompts and articles just to cancel. I had to got a new card number because of this.
my life time account continuously disappears , as an early adaptor i find it appalling. services were sold at full fee and it should be honored not access blocked every couple months . promise was life time access and support not until it suits.
I don't need an update to reset my oil cbs A year later it's still requiring pointless updates for features that have worked for about 10 years without a problem
BUYER BEWARE! This product is terrible. The company's customer service is even worse.
it's a scam, don't buy as it has annual subscription with auto renewal and cannot be canceled anywhere on their website..
expensive and not that good how they claim. is slow, it's show errors on modules which are not on the car just "to look smart" . over 100£/year to have acces 🙄
was cancelled my subscription and they still collect payments . I brought better option with free updates for life .
this is a rip off of a product, beware that they trick you into a subscription that auto renews and hikes the price up. beyond that it is slow and barely works, most features are either an additional expense or just don't work. rubbish edit after response from vendor, If you are so transparent then explain why you have so many one star reviews complaining about the same issue! I expressed my surprise of the charge and asked for a refund immediately, you rejected that, now enjoy the bad reviews
UTTER SCAM DO NOT BUY FROM THESE PEOPLE I cancelled my subscription 2 months before renewal, they still charged me £105 for renewal on a product I paid £40 for. They refuse to refund me. Absolute scammers.
Try to cancel and they won't do it until they get the money from you the next year. I cancelled it last year and i paid for it again on the 8/4/2026. When i looked it in the google play it says cancellation day 8/04/2026 even if i did it a year ago, but did not realised the date at that point. So be carefull when you want to cancel. It is useless on Japanese and Korean cars.
Beware Auto Renew. Like most on here, unaware of this being a yearly subscription. I used it once, and found it slow, and of no use, so never used it again. I then changed car to a different Make and Model. Later, notice from my bank saying payment made to Carly. Emailed Carly saying i didnt authorise a payment and changed car, but they just replied that they dont do refunds. I done a bank charge back, and then an email from Carly saying license cancelled. So they can do it. Bank refunded me.
A mechanic recommended this app to me, I now question every bit of work he's done on my car. This app is that bad. It's a glossy sheen over a basic app designed to extract an extortionate subscription fee. Better to use something like Car Scanner ELM OBD2, one time fee, basic but highly usable interface
ive paid and your not letting me in
Don't waste your money. I bought this for coding which doesn't even work. The app is a bunch of click bait trying to upcharge you. Multiple service requests, they never respond.
Doesn't work properly on my Pixel 10 Pro (Android 16). Please add more support & features for BMW 335i GT 3.0 F34 2015.
this is kind of expensive and I haven't had any luck with it coding properly
Terrible app. Not surprised by the huge amount of bad reviews... I should have read them before installing. Anyway, I've now uninstalled it.
I bought my carly scanner a while back and paid for the better version as at the time it made sense. I've recently come to use it on my car and found that since I last used it, they have added in app purchasing to get full features which I already used to have. its really disappointing to see that a big company feels its okay to put a £100 per annual price on something ive already paid for.
it doesn't work as a scanner? I purchased a scanner just over 2 years ago, the *hidden* annual fee of over £100 auto charged a year later and carly declined to refund me even when I informed them this was an error. I make sure the subscription is cancelled, and now a year later, the scanner is literally useless. what a terrible product from a terrible company. I hope they go into administration, and noone has to have the misfortune of dealing with them again.
AVOID!!! BEWARE!!! Deceitful company, mis-selling annual subscription service. TAKING MONEY FROM YOUR ACCOUNT WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE.
The scanner worked reasonably well for a time. By the second year I purchased service, my scanner would not read my vehicles properly at all and I was expected to buy another scanner. I chose not to and let the second year run out. Carly stored my credit card info, where in Google play I have no subscriptions at all, and took it upon themselves to charge my card for a third year, stealing from me. Now they hide from returning my money behind Google policy that does not apply to me.
Really disappointing experience a year after buying the product. A very large charge out the blue without notice and no empathy or common sense to a refund request. Poor business practice and it was obviously their pre written response was not the first response to a similar experience. Avoid the business and shop with others.
Doesn't show all the check engine codes, most codes that are shown are generic and don't really help. I think it's expensive for what little help it offers. also the customer service isn't helpful at all. don't waste your money. also id like to add that all the times I've reached out to customer service and got no help with my issues, but I leave a poor review and get a response immediately. that says it all. I'd give you less than 1 star if I could, that's how unsatisfied I am with your product
needs an update bmw g05 11.2025 software version not fully supported
It says it requires a gen 2 ODB2 converter for programming features... while otherwise working and connected to the vehicle with what it also confirms is a Gen 2 converter. Bummer but I guess it's cheaper than the real tools for a reason, I'll just have to go buy one that works.
don't buy
I would like to start by saying the app itself is okay, the plan is a little overpriced in my opinion, but the biggest issue is when you contact customer services. All responses seem to be automated replies quoting German law, even though I have never threatened legal action. Rather than communicating with a person that understands the situation Would like to get one plan cancelled as you have added an additional one to my account instead of upgrading the one I already have. ticket number1734720
Had this on 2 cars now and no extended obd functions wont be wasting my money anymore on this app
Doesn't give that much functionality for the price. A lot of things like live data you can achieve better with cheaper Chinese scan tools... They also hide their subscription cancelation button so they make it a bit harder to cancel. They are required by law to make this available but there are loopholes that they leverage to pass regulation. The have a contract termination page that is hard to find unless you contact their support and they present this to you if you cite the law.
Extremely disappointing. The device itself is essentially a dongle linked to a slow app. In my case, it would not read a Volvo we tested, and it frequently produced ambiguous error codes on my Mercedes. It did function on a BMW X5, but very very slowly. However, my main issue arose 12 months after purchase. I was charged the ridiculous sum of £122.88 for an annual renewal that I was not aware would occur. I received no renewal reminder and no advance notice. I wish I'd never heard of Carly
I already have a subscription for BMW but decided to add TOYOTA full features as well. I paid the subscription but there is no customisation or coding tab in the features section for Toyota corolla E210. Paid more than £18 for it and there is no use for me. As i said i already have the bmw features for years and i am very happy with it but buying Toyota not. Wish i could get refund.
I saw Carly's website, so I gave it another shot and just paid for Volvo. Still the same problem. I can't get a refund because I paid again, so I'm never buying it again. I canceled my subscription. I'm never trusting this again. I checked reviews and saw lots of complaints too.
Waste of money and unethical this people will contact you and offer something to give a good review
Took over 10 minutes to tell me there was nothing wrong, when another app found a code. Don't bother with this app unless you have way too much time on your hands. Uninstalled.
was good but not anymore, back in the BMW coding days these were great for the community but now they make you pay for the adapter and the licences for an obd app which is worse then the free ones. I paid a lot of money for my app benefits back in the day for the app to now demand more money out of me. I can't even do a basic diagnostic scan without paying to see the codes. I just paid £50 for your latest adapter!
do not buy this app or scanner after several attempts to cancel they still wont cancel the auto renewal subscription and keep trying to charge me and have even given me a late payment fine its a scam theres no phone number or anyone to talk too please please do not buy further to many back and forth conversations between klarna and carly and still getting nowhere i need to speak to a real perso to resole my issue but carly has no contact details so how do i speak to someone to resolve my issues
The hidden yearly subscription to use this average service where there are many similar, far cheaper devices on the market with a one off purchase cost makes me dislike this product. Put the conditions in writing up front and my rating would change....
scam, didnt get my scanner, first scanner got shipped to a different address well a different country, second scanner is now almost a month in transit. please prove me wrong but up until I get my scanner this is a scam, no allegation this is truth and prove me wrong but up until than its a scam. also the contact us page is even useless as they dont understand English
terrible app
I paid the full subscription. the only thing I can really do on it is was scans. it had no option for any updates. avoid if you have a ford. it's very basic sure it probably works great on german cars .but it would. very frustrating and disappointing mike
Its subscription based $110/year. I use it for personal vehicle use, so I subscriptions dont make sense for me to pay when i might use it once a year. They will not reimburse your payment if you dont know all this
Don't like Carly, very hard to navigate, very hard to get any help. will not renew and it will be in recycling.
in my opinion, you pay a fair amount of money for this equipment. the app crashes alot and freezes whilst scanning. yes you can code but you cant do any adaptations ect or run tests on particular just live info and some coding... not practical for most things really. cool if you want to clear codes and get rid of the car then by all means 🤣. On most readers too, you can read codes (if your subscription is outdated) but if you dont own a other brand you cant.. really isn't practical for much.
This is a SCAM! Carly buries the fact that this is an auto renewing service in the fine print, and by the time you realize it they've already pulled another $100 from your payment method. They make it very difficult to cancel and they will not issue a refund. what a shady company!
The product does not work, there is zero support, it doesn't have basic coding features as advertised. My device stopped reading the ECU (it would only read live data). Once you subscribe there's no easy way to cancel, no notification of renewal and once you're auto-billed you'll hear "too bad, German law allows us to charge you for a full year." Even after I told them my device did not work they still decided the refused to refund my purchase. Stay away.
Might as well be a scam. Don't trust reviews either, they have asked to buy my review on trustpilot before. in response to them, I literally have an email proving that they tried to buy my review 😂
Rubbish app, rediculous costs to renew, no wonder almost half the reviews get 1 star
carly doesn't send reports as they say they do
i received the package today. I didn't know i could not code bmw idrive7 in my g01 which use coding version 2.0. I updated the app, still not possible. you Carly guys should have specified it before anyone buys it. not much use for me. can I get a refund?
Sentiment summary
63%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
34%
Negative (1-2★)