I have a few minor little acid rain rings on my roof and have tried everything. 3m rubbing compound and such. Am I stuck taking a high speed buffer to it or is there a way that wouldn't evolve buffing off some clear coat?

 

Here is my advice:

When detailing your paint always work your way from least aggressive to systematically more aggressive methods.
Here are the steps I would take based on my experience as a home enthusiast. I am not a professional and if the spots are very bad I advise you to seek a true professionals help.
Also please forgive me if I list some things you have done already.

My preferred manufacturer for most all of my detailing products is out there in CA and I can send you their name in a PM if you want. Everything I buy from them is just class A stuff and their online YouTube Channel has excellent tutorials.
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True Acid Rain Spots are a concave etching into the clear coat. They can therefore not be removed. All you can do is lower the surrounding clear coat until it is flush with the lowest portion of the Acid Rain Concave Etching -> thus "removing" the defect.

Step 1. Clean Surface
The very first step is washing with a quality car soap and either a foam cannon or 2 bucket method.

Step 2. Clean Surface even more
Clay bar to remove all particulates and bonded contaminants from the surface.

Step 3. Random Orbital Polishing
***Note - if you have the Aluminum Roof your paint and underlying aluminum panel will distribute the heat created by the orbital buffer differently than on the ferrous metal panels on regular cars. It is near impossible to burn your paint with a Porter Cable or Flex Orbital car buffer, but I mention the heat transfer difference because it will affect how quickly or slowly results will show during the use and breakdown of your polishing compound due to the heat soak of the panel you are working on. In short, if you have experience buffing regular metal panels and apply the same technique, pressure and time to an aluminum panel you may see different results. ***
Use a Porter Cable 7424XP or Flex orbital buffer with a finishing compound (least amount of cut) and a finishing pad (least amount of cut). Buff the area until the compound breaks down (see compound mfg instructions). Wipe clean and inspect.
If spots have been successfully "removed" finish with a paint/clear coat sealant and or wax.

Step 4. Random Orbital Polish
If the spots remain tackle them with one step more aggressive compound and one step up on the pad as well. Repeat step 3 with these changes, clean and inspect.
If spots have been successfully "removed" back up to step 3 and use finishing compound and pad to smooth out the medium compound's marks and then finish with a paint/clear coat sealant and or wax.

Step 5. Random Orbital Polish/Wet Sanding
If the spots remain you are now in the realm of Heavy Compound. In my opinion you are also in the neighborhood of wet sanding at this point. Both of these are outside of my experience level and you can really affect the rest of your paint surrounding the acid rain by invoking either of those methods. Here I would personally give up and seek a reputable professionals help! Know your own limits

Step 6 Alternative to steps 3,4 and5 - Glazes
The dirty detailers trick in my opinion but it gets the job done. Glazes are a product that fills in scratches and swirls as well as etchings to give the appearance of a perfect surface. There are some super high quality glazes out there with microfine particles to help get into the smallest defects that apply like wax/sealant and then just wipe off. Then just cover with your favorite wax/sealant and done. If you do not have a professional detailing resource or the desire to tackle the steps above this is a great way to get a fresh looking paint job with minimal effort/investment. So long as you can live with the knowledge that you are living a lie that is

PM me if you have any questions man and I can go into more detail such as product names etc. I did not want to turn this post into an advertisement for the stuff I like to use.

 

That's some great info. I'm familiar with all those steps but wasn't sure what damage acid rain rings do. There not big at all and you can't even feel them. You have to look real close and in the right light to see them. I clean, clay bar, polished and wax frequently. The spots are from the previous owner. Sounds like I need to do as you said and move to the next step. For anyone interested (Wink) a bathroom water stain remover works awesome with a scouring pad to get rain marks off glass. Its in a brown bottle. You can get it in home cleaning supplies at your local WalMart. Just don't get it on the paint.

 

Only thing that came to mind

 

Sweet! Glass is such a challenge sometimes.
You can also use razor blades (box cutter refills, or the scraper kind with a handle) to literally shave contaminants of the glass. Also you can use the random orbit polishers and the light pad and compound to cleanse your glass! Then, I like to apply a sealant to get that rainX effect but instead of weeks it lasts for months!

 

0000 steel wool works great for glass too. Its the quadruple zero grade.

 

I use the razor blades on the front glass. When things hit your glass it causes little micro chips that actually stick up a tiny bit. It ruins wiper blades fast. I scrape every couple months . I don't rain ex. Its such a pain to apply. Just razor blading makes water bead off like crazy.

 

try vinegar people use it for water spots...it shouldnt hurt the clear

 

I did this 0000 wool treatment on my 07 Outlander. It worked and got the spots off extremely well but I couldn't get all the steel wool dust 100% off the car and out of the trim. So over time the dust particles rusted and made tiny brown spots that were even worse than the original water spots.

I spent forever cleaning up the steel wool dust and really tiny fibers and even though it looked clean, time showed me it wasn't.