09 Aveo: oil in coolant - not head gasket

[theaveodad]

I have an update. Although the shop my daughter brought the car to has been in business for decades, I began to doubt if they truly get involved in heavy repairs. By Wednesday, they claimed that they were not able to do the level of diagnosis to say exactly the cause of the oil in the coolant problem. All they could confirm was that there was oil in the radiator. They said they think it might be a head gasket (a repair they price at $1900) or the motor (priced at $900). However, they don't really know and in order to find out they would bring the car to a Chevrolet dealer for a proper diagnosis. They claim that would cost $300 to $400. Today, they let us pick up the car and it got even weirder still, they did not want to charge for whatever (minimal) level of diagnostics they did.

Obviously, this is not the shop to use if we intend to get the 09 Aveo fixed.

Questions:
- Is there something specific to this Aveo that prevents a good independent repair shop from diagnosing a major engine problem? Does the fact that its a Korean made Chevy make it more difficult?

-My daughter doesn't really want to keep the car at this point, but is it worth paying a couple hundred $$ for a proper diagnosis?