If you’ve ever been stuck using just your phone to unlock a 2012-2020 Model S, you know how irritating it can be.

I made it just over a week of that before creating a service center ticket for my keys.

Since I upgraded to MCU 2 a few months back, my second key had become unpaired and I assumed that’s likely what happened to my first key also.

My service center is about 2 miles from me so I was able to just drive over (with remote starting of course) and get it done after work.

Tesla charged me $24.50 for key fob re-pairing as of June 2023:

A screenshot from my invoice showing a charge of $24.50 for key fob re-pairing.

Once I picked up my car, the attendant told me that I could always just press both the front and back button on a key fob while inside the car in order to repair.

This was news to me as I was under the impression that the service center had to do it but at least I know that now.

The process to repair a key fob for a 2015 (or any 2012-2020 model s for that matter) model s is below:

Enter your vehicle.

Hold buttons 1 and 3 as shown below:

Image via Tesla

Continue holding for 5 seconds while inside the vehicle.

Wait and attempt to lock/unlock car to confirm pairing.