2009 hatchback alternator whinning/grinding

[gendoc]

this new to me yaris has 80k miles on it from original owner.
he mentioned to me that his mechanic says the alternator bearing is going bad and the alternator needs replacing. i purchase a reman alt from advanced autoparts and installed. it makes just as much noise as the original did so maybe its something else....so i replaced the AC clutch and no help there.
so thinking the replacement alt is also bad and had a GM mechanic friend look at it and he said he can feel the alternator grinding and said it needs to be returned. when i remove the alternator, i'm going to crank and run the engine without the belt on to see if the noise is still there. so i will report back about the results this weekend.
thanks for reading, let me know what yall think.
thanks,
john