First, CVT's are not going away and from what I have found as long as you do proper maintenance you should be good.

Looking at SubaruOutback.org and subaruforester.org which are highly recommended to join, people have had positive things to say about the CVT's.

I will post a couple of replies from outback forum.

'I have not yet owned a subaru CVT. I have spent far too much of my free time reading this website though.

I've read about 4 specific CVT catastrophic failures reported on this site. That's out of ~450,000 CVT outbacks sold 2010-2014.

Obviously not everyone who bought such a car has registered on this site, but it should give you some idea, anyway.

I have an impression that the dealerships do not want to perform any maintenance procedures on these transmissions- I think there is some internal conflict between the dealers and the factory on this point. The dealers aren't generally trusted to do anything other than swap transmissions in the case of failure covered by warranty, and they don't seem to have the experience to do component-level troubleshooting or repair.

There is a theme of dealers talking owners out of doing periodic fluid flushes, which seems very odd to me. The owners' manual specifically lists conditions which should result in a fluid change, yet the dealers seem hesitant in many cases.

Just reporting my casual observations.'

'As an engineer, early in my personal new-car search I had concerns about the long-term reliability of Subaru CVTs ... even though they have been building them in one form or another for more than 30 years. So far I have been impressed by the relative lack of defect or failure reports on the Internet and elsewhere. The Subaru defect/failure rate seems to be immensely lower than that for the GM and Chrysler conventional automatic transmissions I'm more familiar with. (My wife's current daily driver is a '98 Dodge Caravan with 284,000+ miles on the original 3.3 liter V6 engine and "fragile" A604/41TE transmission.)

The chain and variable-cone assembly is probably the most critical component of a CVT transmission, and much to my amazement the technology now seems to be both mature and reliable. The rest of a CVT transmission is considerably simpler than a comparable planetary-gear, multi-clutch design. I hope that high reliability will be my wife's and my experience in our new 2015 Legacy.'

'5 years and 70K miles

The CVT of my 2010 OB has been completely trouble-free since initial purchase in July 2009.

CVT requires no routine maintenance.

from Joe Spitz' Subaru Research Site- specs, prices, options, 2015, 2014, 2013.... Outback, Legacy, Forester, WRX, STI, Impreza, Tribeca, BRZ, XV Crosstrek, Hybrid:
CVT Transmission: Life Time CVT oil should not need to be replaced unless driven under hard conditions, towing etc-change every 24,855 miles. Note- there is no CVT oil dipstick.'

Now, I can only speak from my own personal research and talking to Forester owners and dealers living in Taiwan, but Japan Subaru recommend a CVT fluid change every 31,000 miles or 50,000 Km.

In Canada it's 60'000 Km or 37'000 miles.

As far I know, in the US the dealers say sealed unit so life time of the system.

I would go with what Japan Subaru say.

Subaru makes decent CVTs. Probably not as good as Toyota, but I'd say at least close. As long as you do mostly light driving, I wouldn't worry much about the reliability of the trans. I have seen someone make it past 300,000 miles (not kilometers!) on a 2010 Legacy 2.5 with the TR690 CVT, not a single problem. And 2010, being the first year Subaru put the CVT into mainstream production, was the year with the most CVT issues. They have gotten a lot better with these transmissions recently, and while I wish they still used the old reliable Jatco 5 speed, times are changing and the CVT is here to stay. I agree with @iansr that you should follow Subaru of Japan's transmission service interval. Lots of premature CVT failures are caused by degraded fluid, and it doesn't cost much to change it every 30,000 miles as preventative maintenance. You could probably push it to 50,000 miles, just do it is the main message!