Prepared statement not using index

Hi.

I have an interesting problem with the JDBC drivers. When I use a
select like this:

"SELECT t0.aktiv, t0.id, t0.ist_teilnehmer, t0.nachname, t0.plz,
t0.vorname FROM public.dga_dienstleister t0 WHERE t0.plz
like ?::varchar(256) ESCAPE '|'" withBindings: 1:"53111"(plz)>

the existing index on the plz column is not used.

When I the same select with a concrete value, the index IS used.

I use PostgreSQL 8.0.3 on Mac OS X and the JDBC driver 8.0-312 JDBC 3.

After a lot of other things, I tried using a 7.4 driver and with
this, the index is used in both cases.

Why can this happen? Is there a setting I might have not seen?
Something I do wrong?

cug