F.A.Q. & important info

Car Database was born from a major hobby for automobiles and pleasure for working in Excel and data analysis. This is mostly 1-man business. I (Teoalida) do data entry, web scraping, database updates, design my website, and also customer support via chat every day. I employ other people just for coding certain scrapers too complex for me.

After years of dedication I became the biggest provider of automobile data, but also other databases about geography, real estate and electronic products. Check all databases available.

You are allowed to use database commercially in YOUR business or company, on your website, mobile app or other software development.
You are NOT allowed to redistribute / resell database to people outside your company or publish database on other websites.
If you are an individual, student, teacher, and not represent a commercial entity, keep database for YOUR personal use and not give it to anyone else.

Update frequency for each database is approximately proportional with how many people buy it. I am author of over 100 databases, I provide updates on regular basis (monthly to few months) for the ~20 best-selling ones, while the rest I am updating when a customer request update.

I use Easy Digital Downloads plugin for WordPress to sell my works. When you make payment, a download link is generated automatically that give you 1-year access to purchased files.

When I publish updates I click “resend receipt” to notify all customers who purchased that particular database that an update is available, to re-download if they need.

Anyone can convert XLS to SQL: open .XLS file, do the necessary changes in Excel > save as > choose CSV format > go in your website cPanel > phpMyAdmin > create a MySQL database > import CSV file.

Starting from 2015 I provide CSV and SQL by default for best-selling databases at no extra charges (pay once and receive 3 file formats). For others I can provide on request basis.

Because of large number of databases that I am selling, and because each customer have different requirements in integrating my database in his website, there is not possible to make ONE plugin and give it to every customer purchasing a database.

Several free plugins for WordPress do exist (example WooCommerce YMM search) but it can be used only for online stores made with WooCommerce and the only car database that works with it is the Year-Make-Model.

As an independent data provider, I do not guarantee interoperability with other products available online.

Most common conflicts are at BMW and Mercedes, some have model “BMW 3-Series saloon” with trim/variant “320i”, others have model “320i” with trim/variant “saloon, touring, coupe, cabrio”, others have model simply “3-Series” with trim/variant “320i saloon”, among those having 3-Series as model, some put M3 as separate model and others put M3 as trim/variant under 3-Series.

If you are a business working globally rather than in a specific country, or working in some other country than the countries covered by my standard car databases, you may be looking for a global car database.

But… this is not really possible. Car specifications vary depending by country of sale for models having same name, and for accuracy reasons, a car database should be specific to cars SOLD in one country, or with some compromise of quality, to one continent.

Several customers attempted to negotiate prices in wrong way, for example offering me only 5% of full database price motivating that need only 5 of 100 columns available. Sorry but prices are not directly proportional with quantity of data.

There is a minimum price of 25-50% that you must pay even if you need just 1 column.

If you buy a physical product from a real store, you can return it to store undamaged and get refund. But in case of digital car databases, returning is not possible. Since starting selling in 2012, as 2017 I done over 1000 sales and had only 3 or 4 cases of people asking for refunds. If any customer report problems I always choose to fix the problem rather than refunding, until every customer is satisfied.

In 2015 I started using web scraping software to quickly create databases extracting data from various websites. Scraping software do not extract only text (model names and specifications) but also Image URLs (link to image corresponding to each car model, usually in same resolution).

Been contacted by a lot of people asking for VIN database so I became interested in providing such data, BUT… VIN is unique per car and not per model so what I should do? Please give me some ideas and samples!

The CORRECT way to make a car valuation service is to use a database with new car prices, another database that adjust price based on car age and/or miles driven, another database that adjust price based on state / ZIP code. I can provide you database with car prices as new (MSRP / showroom price), but not the rest.

I DO NOT have registration / owners data, and the companies who does have (car dealerships and insurance companies) must follow personal data protection laws and DO NOT share data of their customers to third-parties.

A customer of Teoalida’s Car Database, previously a customer of CarListDB.com, forwarded me the following email received by him from glassguide.com.au:

Estimating over 10,000 car models and over 1,000 parts in a car, make over 10 million parts, would take several months using my computer only.

Several customers asked me if I provide invoices or payment receipts. What does mean invoice for YOU?