Aveo reliability?

[m3t4lm4n222]

So a little background on myself. I am 19 years old and currently unemployed. I spend most of my days cooped up in my room, so naturally I don't drive much HOWEVER I do want a vehicle that will last a long time and be reliable. I am very good about keeping up with maintenance on vehicles. I do my own oil changes every 3K miles, I have experience replacing alternators, exhaust manifolds, radiators, Spark plugs, ect on several different vehicles. I'm also very light on the pedal as I am used to driving SLOW vehicles. I currently own a Suzuki Samurai with a whopping 60 HP so 103HP would be welcoming to say the least :P

So I have a budget of $3500 and I was looking at vehicles such as Geo Metro's with ~100K miles, Low mileage Civics, ect and then I came across several Aveo's with anywhere from 66K-90k miles on them for ~$4000 dollars. Now, I have been told that Chevrolet Aveo's are "Junk" by my father who is a mechanic, however this is a man used to driving $30,000 late model trucks.

So I was wondering, how do Aveo's really hold up? Can they go 200K+ miles? Are they constantly having issues? It appears like the biggest issue with them is the timing belt breaking and causing damage to engine internals. Is this because people simply neglect to replace their timing belt or is it because the design is flawed? Would buying an Aveo with ~80K miles be a better buy then some other well known car with ~100,000 miles on it? How expensive is engine work in the event of a blown head gasket? What about the manual transmission? I WOULD definitely be looking for a 5 speed.

Thanks guys!