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Oil products database

Various customers asked me to create car oil databases, but there are over 10 oil brands, and making scripts to scrape data from each one is not viable. We should decide at 1 or 2. We made a scraper for Pennzoil in 2017 (contains only engine oil for cars sold in United States) and for Ravenol in 2021 (cover multiple oil products for cars sold in multiple countries).

Ravenol

My partner Mohamed created this database in May 2021 for a customer who needed engine oil capacity only (even if I told him to include oil recommendations too because we may have other customers interested in that). My initial requirement was to have a column for each oil type (engine, differential, transmission, brakes, cooling, etc), but Mohamed thinks that is better to use separate rows for this instead of separate columns. We need feedback from customers about this. Initial release had 243 makes with 28776 engines (makes selling different models on different markets are counted separately). He upgraded scraper in August 2022.

252 makes, 3481 models, 31046 engines, 601431 oil products – 11 August 2022
261 makes, 3852 models, 35378 engines, 1251640 oil products – 16 April 2023

Coverage: 1970s-present, cars sold in America, Europe, China and few from other markets (see list of makes and markets in Statistics sheet inside sample file).

Download free SAMPLE: Ravenol SAMPLE.xlsx

Buy FULL database + FREE updates for one year:

Pennzoil

Coverage: cars sold in United States, with oil capacity in US Gallons. Earliest car is from 1980, but bulk of cars start at 1990s.

Download SAMPLE: Pennzoil SAMPLE.xls

Buy FULL database + FREE updates for 1 year:

List of updates:
57 makes, 34643 models – 12 July 2019
57 makes, 34782 models – 15 October 2019
57 makes, 36521 models – 27 March 2020
57 makes, 36868 models – 27 June 2020
58 makes, 37697 models – 24 October 2020
58 makes, 40882 models – 8 February 2021

Others / possible future projects

Fuchs SAMPLE.xlsx this website is more difficult to make scraper going through every car model.

Eurolub SAMPLE.xlsx similar with Ravenol, but having less rows (about 460,000).

History

First person who wanted oil database came in 2017, I used “universal” scraper to create a database from Pennzoil, and the customer did not replied anymore, nor purchased database, I abandoned project not published on website. I should have published it earlier, other people may have been interested and could do few extra sales. Pennzoil website has been redesigned meantime and could not be scraped anymore with the universal scraper.

In March 2019 another customer needing oil database provided me 5 possible websites to scrap data from. All them are difficult to scrap, cannot do them with my universal scraper so I need to pay a programmer for a custom scraper.

By June 2019 other 5 customers contacted me interested in oil database, but we argued regarding from which is the BEST website to source data from.

Despite that personally I don’t like Pennzoil, 3 people choose it, so my programmer partner made a custom scraper for Pennzoil in July 2019. This is not enough to satisfy all customers because Pennzoil have only cars sold in USA, so we need to scrap one of other sites too.

Option 1: https://www.pennzoil.com/en_us/oil-selector.html#iframe=L2RvL2VuX1VTL2VxdWlwbWVudC9jYWRpbGxhY18odXMpLzIwMTkvY3RzX2x1eHVyeV8yXzB0X3Z2dF9hd2RfY3RzX0VGdDhQb2FtbA – do I need to make 1 row for Standard and 1 row for Premium, or should be separate columns? some cars have 3 or 4 oil types indicated. Give me a suggestion because my programmer need exact template how you want data to be displayed. This may be slightly easier to scrap, however personally I DON’T like this website because it have only cars sold in USA and only engine oil.

Pennzoil have also a section for oil filters: https://www.pennzoil.com/en_us/filter-selector.html but car model hierarchy is different so will require 2 different custom scrapers which will produce 2 different databases that I CANNOT combine.

Option 2: https://www.amsoil.com/lookup/auto-and-light-truck/2013/audi/a4-quattro/2-0l-4-cyl-engine-code-cpma-5-flex-turbo/us-volume/#engine1 – this one have more info than just engine oil, but the way info is displayed on website makes difficult to put each piece of information in the right column.

Option 3: https://applications.castrol.com/oilselector/en_us/c/recommendation?vehicleType=cars-and-suvs&manufacturer=bmw&model=3-series-e46-(1998-2006)&modelType=325i-(132-kw)-(2002-2005) – Castrol have cars sold in Europe and USA and also truck and motorcycles, but many cars lack oil recommendation.

Option 4: http://fuchs-eu.lubricantadvisor.com/advice.aspx?lang=eng&country=ro&type=e5167c014c627820dd5f0ce57c9a0bdb – can someone check is this is a good and reliable website to source data from? It have both cars sold in Europe and in America separated in Make list, and shows oil for more oils than just engine oil.

Option 5: https://www.bizol.com/oil-guide/##1|uk|1 this have not just cars but also trucks and motorcycles, contains cars from  US, EU and China, but is again difficult to scrap data from.

Option 6: https://www.ravenol.de/en/oil-guide.html this have not just cars but also trucks and motorcycles, agricultural and construction equipment, contains cars from  US, EU and China, but is again difficult to scrap data from.

Other options suggested by people: Eurolub, Fram, Mobil, Sheel.

2 comments

  1. I looked around for a database for oil recommendations for a while and I’m happy I found something I can work with on this site. I purchased Pennzoil Database and Teoalida asked me if I wanted an update. 1 hour later the update was ready and he sent it to me. Thank you Teoalida!

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